Infinite Improbabilities
by navigatio
Summary: John and Sally find, to their surprise, that time travel isn't actually impossible, merely improbable. Now they're stuck in the past with no way to get home, and John really really hopes he hasn't screwed up the future (present?) with his impulsive decision to be a hero. Ridiculosity ahead! And Pathos! And Kidlock! Epilogue added, complete!
1. Prologue and chapter 1

**Author's Note**: I wrote this story as a palate cleanser after Johnny Blue-Eyes, because I needed to write something fun and light-hearted. This one is more along the lines of Sally Donovan, Freak Wrangler, so if you liked that story, you will probably like this one as well. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Oh, and also! I know I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the history and geography of London. I'm just having fun here, so don't get too upset with me if I have a few of the details wrong. No beta, no Brit-picking. Just me and my best mate Google on the research team.

Serious silliness ahead, with a bit of pathos and angst mixed in, along with a probably unhealthy dose of Kid!lock. This story is set about 16 months after the end of His Last Vow (1 April 2016). Mary and John have a 15-month-old daughter.

* * *

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Prologue: Sherlock, age 5**

* * *

_The little boy who isn't afraid of anything. – Sharp shoes - Maybe he's afraid of a few things._

* * *

It's dark and cold and he's _starving_ because Mummy didn't even give him any biscuits before she made Mycroft take him to the park because he wouldn't settle down after school and it's _not fair_ that they make him sit still all day in school and then he isn't even allowed to run around at home when he feels like a motor is driving him and he has to _move_ but no one understands. They just say "_Do shut up you're giving me headache_" and ship him off to the park where other children laugh at him and call him names and then blame him because he got into another fight when it's not even his fault.

The metal handcuffs are hurting his wrists because he's been pulling on them and twisting and trying to get his hand free, but he has to go slow and be quiet at the same time because even though the mean man and mean lady left him alone, he can hear them yelling at each other just on the other side of the wall and he's afraid they'll come back. No, not afraid. He isn't afraid of anything, he's angry. That's it. He's angry that they grabbed him off the path at the park and put a jacket over his head and he didn't even get a chance to scream before they shoved him into the car. When he kicked his feet, he hit something hard and heard someone shout a word that he had heard Mycroft say one time and Mummy put soap in his mouth so it was a bad word. But then someone kicked him in the belly (probably the lady because he could feel the sharp heel of her shoe) but he wasn't sorry.

He's angry, but his daddy will be even angrier when he catches them. They'll be sorry for sure. His daddy will knock their heads together and toss them both into jail, then they'll pay for hurting him, for all the times they hit and kicked him on the way out of the car and into the building, and for what the bad man did with his cigarette and how they laughed at him when he couldn't help screaming because it hurt so much. Well they aren't laughing so much anymore, but that's even worse for him because her shoes are sharp.

He's got one wrist free now, but he can't get the other hand out and the handcuffs are stuck on the metal pipes that he thinks are a heater even though no heat is coming out but he wishes there were because he's so cold that his fingers feel frozen and he can barely even bend them.

He hears the voices getting louder, echoing off the walls and he pulls harder which hurts his wrist but he's desperate to be free. If he can just get his wrist free he can hide in the shadows behind one of the boxes in the little room that he's in and they'll never find him. He'll be able to get away when they open the door. He'll just run out through their legs before they can catch him. He knows how to be slippery because of all the times he's had to slip away from Mycroft.

But his hopes are dashed when the door opens and a shadow falls across him. He can't see the face because the lights are behind the person, but he can spot the glow of a lit cigarette and a curl of smoke. They're going to hurt him again. He's not scared, he's not scared, don't be scared, he tells himself but it doesn't help.

* * *

**Part the First**

**Chapter 1: John**

* * *

_The smell of dog shit in the afternoon. – Is that a Tardis? – That's part of the trick, innit? – John dashes off unprepared._

* * *

John opened his eyes to a brilliant blue sky and the smell of earth and dog shit. The sun was trying to burn his retinas out of his head. He shut his eyes again. Wait a minute, blue sky and sunshine? That wasn't right.

As he lay there with his eyes squeezed shut, he realized that he was lying half-on something lumpy and squishy, but under his head something prickly tickled his cheek. Carefully he opened one eye and turned his head to the side. Patchy brownish grass. Oh. That wasn't right either.

"Oof, get off me!" said a woman's voice from somewhere in the vicinity of his left elbow. Cockney accent. He twisted his head in that direction and spotted a mess of long brownish curls. Sally Donovan? Why was he lying on top of Sally? Well, half on top of her, anyway. He certainly hadn't _intentionally_ laid down on top of Sally Donovan.

"Sorry," he mumbled. He attempted to sit up with eyes closed against the sun, but ended up sort of rolling to his right. Mud squished under his hip and knee. At least he hoped it was just mud. That smell of dog shit still lingered in the air, and he really hoped he hadn't rolled into it. Mary wouldn't like it if he came home stinking of manure. The last time he had come home a stinky mess, after a foot chase through the sewers (following Sherlock, of course, who had somehow come out still smelling like roses), she had sent him out to the pavement and hosed him down like a dog.

Sally squirmed until she was free, muttering "yuck" under her breath. And then, "What the hell? Where are we?"

"Yeah, I was just wondering that myself," John rejoined, looking around. His vision was a bit fuzzy, but he could make out the outline of a house, dark brown and with an abandoned air, about twenty meters away. Between them and the house was a sea of half-dead grass, broken by tree stumps and uneven with rocks. He spotted bits of curved glass, looked like from broken bottles, strewn about the grass along with other assorted rubbish.

How the hell did he get here, lying in someone's front garden, with Sally Donovan under him? Last he remembered. . .

_He was inside a house. It was mostly dark, with lots of looming shadows, smell of mold and dust and mothballs. A huge jack-in-the-box popped out at him. He was chasing Sherlock and Lestrade, but had mostly lost them by now. Why was he chasing them? Where was he going?_

_Oh, The Wizard. Clown, magician, and. . . serial killer (according to Sherlock). Right._

_They had tracked him down to his house, stuffed full of dusty antique magic equipment—boxes for cutting people in half, ropes, pulleys, bells, stuff John didn't even have a name for, much less know the use of. Sherlock (thoughtless git) had run ahead, leaving him behind in this sideshow, and he was finding it sort of terrifying, not that he would admit it._

_He stopped at an intersection, not sure which way to go. Behind him he heard Sally Donovan's voice._

_"To the left, I think."_

_He looked to his left, then the right. A silhouette of a man, dressed all in black, stood framed in a doorway down the hall. The Wizard! He was surrounded by a glowing aura. Was he standing in front of a window? Weren't they in the middle of the house somewhere?_

_John stared at him openmouthed, trying to come up with the words, finally ending up choking out, "There!" Then the man beckoned to him, and turned and ran. John raced after, with Sally at his heels, around a corner just in time to see the man disappear through a small doorway. He followed without thinking._

_And then he felt what seemed like a push from behind and he was falling. Had Sally pushed him? Maybe on accident. She had been fussing with her walkie, trying to inform Lestrade that they had found their guy. As he fell, everything went curiously dim. The air felt thick like treacle. . ._

And suddenly he was lying in a garden on top of Sally Donovan. Sally Donovan who was getting to her feet and reaching down a hand to help him up as well. "Weren't we inside the house? How the hell did we get out here?"

"Hmm—Don't know." John looked around from his new vantage point of his feet. The garden was surrounded by a low picket fence, gap-toothed from missing boards. To his right stood the house. Perhaps, the same house he remembered being inside of no more than two minutes previous? Same color, same abandoned air, but it seemed smaller. To his left, past the fence, was the pavement, and a street beyond, empty at the moment with the exception of a couple of parked cars.

"Isn't that the house we were just in?" Sally asked, pointing.

"Yeah, maybe. Looks similar, I suppose."

Sally went to the gate and leaned over to look at the house number. "Yeah, this is the right house." She looked across at the street signs on the side of a building. "Ridgeway Drive and that one's Broadlands Road, see? That's where we were."

John frowned at the signs. The streets were right, but. . . "But that house didn't have a front garden this size, did it? The house went practically right up to the street. And there was an upper story."

Sally squinted up at the house. "Right, it looks different, don't it? But this is the same address, I'm sure of it." She pulled her mobile from her pocket, tapped the screen and held it to her ear while John waited. A few seconds later she pulled it away from her ear and frowned at it, tapped it again and repeated the process. "It's not ringing. There's no signal."

So John pulled out his phone as well and saw that he had no signal either. He tried Sherlock anyway, but the call didn't go through either. Neither did a call to Lestrade. He even tried Sally, but her phone didn't ring. His fancy smart phone had turned into a brick for want of coverage. Thank you so much, Vodaphone.

Sally looked around while she returned her phone to her pocket. "Where is my cruiser? It was parked on this street."

"Dunno. Don't suppose they left without us, do you?" As he said it, John realized that it was _exactly_ the sort of thing Sherlock would do, although he doubted Lestrade would go along with it.

"They wouldn't dare." Sally strode up to the front door of the house, with John hurrying after, and tried the knob. It was locked, and so were the windows next to the door. "This wasn't locked earlier, was it?"

"Not since Sherlock picked it, no. Should be open."

"Well, it's locked now. Door looks different too."

John leaned in and inspected the door. Plain brown wood, when he now remembered that it had been black with red trim. "Yeah. The red trim is gone. The whole house had red trim, and now it doesn't."

"Well, what the hell. . .? You don't suppose Sherlock is somehow responsible for this, do ya? Maybe playing a trick on us?"

"I don't see how he could be. . ." John was distracted by a woman passing on the pavement, with big, feathered hair, oversized jumper, and. . . legwarmers? He hadn't seen those in years. Well, they say everything old is new again, right? Following right behind her was a man wearing the most ridiculous suit John had ever seen, powder blue with wide lapels. His hair was big and feathered as well, and was he wearing _eyeliner_? Well, to each his own, he supposed.

Then he started noticing other details on the street. The fact that the car parked in front of the house was a Talbot Sunbeam, which John hadn't seen in donkey's-years, and this one looked brand new. The shop across the street with a big sign that said "Carrefour Market," which was a brand John had seen in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but hadn't existed in the UK for ages as far as he knew*. Half a block away, a blue police call box stood on the pavement. John happened to know that there couldn't be a police call box on that corner, as the only one left in London was outside of Earl's Court station, several kilometers from his current location. So what the hell. . .?

Without even thinking what he was doing, he started walking toward it, ignoring Sally, who was following behind calling "John? John! Where are you going?"

When he got to the corner, he saw that the box was run-down, with peeling paint and a rusty padlock on the door. Next to the Police Box stood a white and blue newspaper box with a glass window displaying a copy of The Guardian, with a black and white photo of a face John hadn't seen in a while: former American President Ronald Reagan. The headline blared "**Reagan is Shot**". What? Wasn't Reagan dead of natural causes already?

He leaned in and caught sight of the date under the masthead. 1 April, (Yes, that was right). . . 1981.

What? Just. . . what? Was this one of those spoof stories the Guardian was famous for on April Fools' Day? Or were they talking about a different Reagan?

John stared open-mouth at the date while his mind slowly clicked through the possibilities, ignoring Sally who was standing behind him trying to get his attention.

"John, what the hell are you—"

_click_

"Wish I could get a signal out here. . ."

_click_

"Have you got any money on you?"

_CLICK_!

"Maybe we should just take a cab back to the Yard."

"Sally—"

"It's not like Lestrade to leave us behind. Sherlock on the other hand. . ."

"Sally!"

"What?"

"Look at that date."

"Yeah, what-? Oh, it's April fool's. It's a trick, then!"

"No, the year."

"1981? That's part of the trick, innit?" She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted down the street toward the house. "Hey Freak! You can come out now."

"We've got to find Sherlock."

"Yeah, I know. I'm working on it. He and Lestrade are probably back at the Yard already, having a laugh watching us on security camera."

"Look around. How could Sherlock have done all this? It's 1981. We've gone back in time, Sally. It must have been something in The Wizard's house. He's got all that magical junk. That small door we went through. . ."

"John, come on, time travel is impossible. We couldn't have gone. . ." Her voice faltered a little as she swiveled her head left and right, slowly. ". . .back in time, right? I mean, that's not—How could we—_Shit_." That last bit was whispered as she turned back to John, wide-eyed. "What the hell do we do now?"

"We've got to find Sherlock," John repeated, scanning for a cab.

"He'd be—what—four or five years old? I don't think he can help us now. Lestrade would be a better bet. I think he might be at the Academy. . ."

"No. Sherlock. We've got to help him."

"John, what are you talking about?"

"The first of April, 1981, was the date he was kidnapped from Holland Park. He has screaming nightmares about it. We've got to find him and stop it."

John started off down the pavement, still looking up and down the street for a cab. Did they have Black Cabs in 1981? Yes, he remembered riding in one as a boy, just once, on a family trip to London.

He felt Sally's hand on his arm, pulling him back. "John, if we really are somehow in 1981, which I still don't quite believe, I don't think it's a good idea to try to change the past. You don't know how it would affect things in the present—I mean, future."

"I've got to try to change this one thing. If I can spare him that, I've got to take the chance."

* * *

*According to - ahem - wikipedia, Carrefour markets used to exist in the UK, but there weren't any in London. Again, just having fun here. Details may not be historically accurate.


	2. Chapter 2: Sally

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Sally**

* * *

_A cab ride for only two pounds fifty. - A day late and a pound short. - In which verb tenses are inadequate. – Jack and Shelley, got it. – Finding Sherlock. – Things get more complicated, dammit. – Sherlock holds on like a baby monkey._

* * *

Sally wasn't sure what was happening, but John was running off down the street, and she felt responsible for him because he was a civilian involved in a police matter, and also he was apparently the only person she knew anymore—these days—those days? What the hell was going on, anyway? She didn't know if she bought John's theory that they had somehow traveled in time, because she was fairly sure that was impossible, but she would go along with it for now until a better theory came along. Maybe this was just a dream anyway. It made more sense than _time travel_.

John had managed to hail a cab on the corner of Burnt Ash Lane, which Sally remembered as the A2212, although that signage had gone missing. She really hoped John had some money because her pockets were near empty and she didn't think the cabbie would take a credit card, seeing that it had been issued in 2012, which hadn't happened yet apparently.

When they were ensconced in the back seat of the old-fashioned cab, which was smaller than she remembered, with manual windows and a tacky-looking yellow and brown interior, she asked him again, "Have you got any money?"

"Yeah," he said distractedly. "I just cashed my paycheck. Six hundred quid. Should be plenty."

"You brought that much money to a crime scene?" she squeaked. "Christ, John!"

"Sherlock caught me on the way home and insisted I come along. I didn't have time to drop off the money. Don't worry, it's fine. Anyway, good I've got it."

"The notes look a bit different, don't they?" she said quietly, glancing up at the window separating them from the cabbie.

"A bit. I'll just shove it in his hand quick and leave. He won't notice. I hope."

Sally didn't like it, but she didn't have any money on her, much less any banknotes from 1981, so she didn't have a better plan.

"I wonder what time it is?" John said, craning his head to look out the window.

"Um, it's. . ." She fished her phone out of her pocket to check the time, but John grabbed her hand and made her put it back. "Oh, right. . ."

"Yeah, keep that put away. It's not going to be right anyway, and neither is my watch. I'd say it's about half four, by the sun."

When the cab pulled up in front of Holland Park, John jumped out and leaned over to pay the cabbie.

"That'll be two pounds fifty," the man grunted.

John gaped at him until Sally elbowed him in the ribs. "You heard the man. Two pounds fifty."

"Oh, uh, right. Smallest I've got's a tenner."

The man took the note without more than a passing glance, and then they waited while he slowly counted out the change. Sally smirked at the pound notes he handed over instead of the coins she was used to. "Haven't seen any of those in a while," she said to John in an undertone as they walked away.

"Yeah, my pockets feel lighter already," John snickered back.

"So where are we going?"

"Playground, right up this path. Mycroft told me he was snatched at 4:45. They had gone to the park after school so Sherlock could burn off some energy—"

"Think that strategy would work now?" Sally asked with a grin. "Send him to the park to play when he gets too fractious?"

"Maybe. He likes to climb. That's how he leaves me behind, mainly. I just hope we're in time to stop it."

While they were talking, a boy came running up the path toward them. He was wearing a school uniform: Maroon blazer, gray jumper, black trousers, blue and maroon tie. Sally didn't recognize the school colors, but it looked fancy. His sandy hair was sweaty and his round face looked flushed and panicked.

"Please, I'm looking for my brother," he said breathlessly to another couple a little ways in front of them.

John grabbed Sally's arm to stop her. "Shit, that's Mycroft," he whispered.

"He's about this tall—" Mycroft gestured about waist height "—He's got black curly hair and he's wearing a school uniform like mine with a rip in the knee."

The couple were shaking their heads, so Mycroft quickly left them and ran on toward John and Sally.

"Please, sir, have you seen my brother?" he asked anxiously. "He's run off and I can't find him!"

John shot Sally a glance, then said to the boy, "What's your brother's name?"

"Sherlock. He's only five. He's gone and disappeared on me!"

"Why don't you run phone your Mum and Dad?" Sally put in. "We'll look around here."

"I haven't got any money for the phone."

"Oh, here," John dug in his pocket and came up with a 10p coin from his change from the cabbie. "Take this. There's a call box just outside the park. Go phone them quickly now."

"Yes, sir, thank you!" The boy called back over his shoulder as he ran off toward the entrance to the park.

John turned to Sally, eyebrows raised. "Believe me now?" he asked quietly.

Sally shrugged in response. "I suppose my only other choice is to believe this is a very detailed dream, which I still haven't ruled out, mind you."

"Yeah, I was wondering that myself."

"Do you know where they took Sherlock? I doubt we're going to find him here."

"It was an abandoned warehouse in Clapham. Mycroft told me that's where they finally found him, after they paid the ransom. He pointed it out to me one time." John started back toward the street, with Sally hurrying to catch up.

"Finally?" she asked in surprise. "How long did they have him?"

"Almost two weeks before his parents paid the ransom. Sherlock never talked about what they did, but Mycroft thinks they tortured him that whole time. He says he was never the same after. We've got to find him before that happens." John raised his hand and a black cab rolled to a stop at the kerb.

"Maybe we should call the police," Sally said quietly as she climbed into the cab after John.

John shook his head. "No police. They said they'd kill him. I know where he is. We'll just go and free him."

"Won't he recognize us?"

"He hasn't met us yet. You haven't even been _born_ yet."

"Yes I have! But no, I mean later, in the present—in the future. Damn, I haven't even got the right verb tenses to talk about this. I mean, when we meet him again, in the—future, present, whatever—won't he remember that it was us who rescued him?"

"I don't know. He's only five."

"This is Sherlock we're talking about here. He remembers everything."

"Unless he decides to delete it, you mean. Yeah, you're right. How about fake names then? So even if he recognizes our faces, the names won't match."

"All right. What names?"

"How about I'm Jack, and you're Shelley. They'll be easy to remember, and if we forget and slip up, it will sound close enough that maybe he won't notice."

"Ok. Jack. You're Jack. Jack-be-Nimble."

"Right. Don't call me that."

"How about Jack Sprat? Can I call you that?"

"How about just Jack."

"Ok, Just-Jack."

"Ha ha." John scoffed, but he had a little smile on his face, and that was what Sally had been going for, so she smirked back. It was slightly easier these days to make John laugh, which was a relief. The few times she had seen him while Sherlock was playing dead, he looked so tense and serious that she had been overwhelmed with guilt and afraid to talk to him. And even since Sherlock had been back. . . well, John never looked relaxed and _happy_ anymore, not like he had before all that mess happened.

"I wonder what a five-year-old Sherlock will be like?" she mused.

"Other than shorter, probably not much different to an almost-forty-year-old Sherlock, I'd imagine."

"True."

The nearly twenty minute cab ride to Clapham cost only three pounds, which left Sally shaking her head in disbelief, but she didn't have time to remark on it before John said, "Across the street there, see?" He gestured toward a derelict-looking warehouse, with boarded up windows and a chained-shut front door. "Let's go around the back. That door is chained shut from the outside, so they must have got in a different way." John headed that direction. Sally trailed after dubiously. Venturing into a dark alleyway in this neighborhood didn't seem like the best idea to her, but what choice did she have? John was her responsibility, and she was determined not to let him get killed if she could help it.

"Where was he in the building?"

"Mycroft said a back storage room. They had him chained to a radiator like a dog."

"How are we going to avoid the kidnappers?"

"We'll just have to be quiet and look around," John said. "Here we go." He pointed to where a door was propped partway open with a worn-out trainer stuffed under it in lieu of a doorstop.

Carefully John pulled it open, wincing when it creaked a little. They both froze to listen for noises that meant they had been heard, but all was quiet inside, so John stuck his head in while Donovan waited anxiously. After a second, he beckoned to her, palm-up military-style, then slipped past the door, with Donovan so close behind that she trod on his heel.

"Sorry!" she whispered, but he just put his finger to his lips to shut her up. Donovan backed off a few steps and eased her Taser out of its pouch on her belt, hoping she wouldn't find the criminals inside to be armed with anything more deadly. Since they were apparently in a time period before the Firearms act of 1997, she considered it likely that the perps were carrying guns, whereas unfortunately she only had her Taser to protect them both.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside, she caught a glint of light reflecting off something metal in John's hand. Shit, he was carrying a firearm? She was going to have to have a little talk with him about that later. After this was over, that is. She hoped she could get it off him without a fuss. At the moment, however, she couldn't say she wasn't grateful.

John held up a fist, and Sally stopped just in time to avoid plowing into him. A minute later she heard the voices coming from somewhere to her left, first a man, then a woman's higher pitch. She couldn't make out what they were saying, just the murmur of voices. They sounded angry.

John beckoned again toward a hallway to the right, away from the voices. He stopped at the first doorway and tried the knob, but it didn't turn, so he kept moving. Sally followed suit on the other side of the hall, slowly and carefully trying each door in turn, but they were all locked.

Finally, when they had nearly reached the chained-shut exit door at the end of the hallway, a knob gave way in her hand. She stopped before it opened and waved John over. He pulled out his phone, turned on the torch setting, and held it up with the gun, then nodded at her.

Donovan took a deep breath, mouthed "one-two-three" and quickly pushed open the door. At first the torch illuminated only boxes and piles of junk inside, then a quiet scuffling sound came from the left, so they both spun in that direction. John swung the torch down, and the beam caught a small white hand, palm out, smudged with blood and dirt, and beyond it a head of dark curls.

Oh!

Slowly the hand lowered just enough for her to see a pair of blue-green eyes in a dirty, beat-up, blood-smeared face. Although Sherlock (could this really be him?) was tiny, bruised, and defenceless, he didn't look scared; rather angry and determined. His face, while filthy, was unmarked by tears.

While she and John both stood there, stunned, the boy scooched back until he was pressed up against the radiator, but he didn't scream as she had been expecting. Instead his little hand curled into a fist. She could see that his wrist was a bloody mess, and that his other hand was cuffed to the radiator behind him. His face was marked with dark bruises, his shirt untucked and half-unbuttoned, his trousers ripped and spattered with reddish-brown blood, and he was missing a shoe.

Something about the scene caught Sally right in the throat. "Hey, little man," she said gently, pushing John's hand down so the torch (and gun) weren't pointed directly at Sherlock's head. She tucked her Taser away, pulled out her handcuff key, and moved in closer, only to get kicked in the shin for her trouble.

"Ouch! Hey, we're here to help!" she hissed.

Sherlock's face pulled down into a scowl. "Will you take me home?" he asked in a piping little voice that made her do a double-take.

Sally shot John a glance. "That's the plan. Isn't it, _Jack_?"

"Yeah," John replied, warily watching the door. "I'm going to go check our escape route." He slipped noiselessly out the door, and Sally crouched down in front of Sherlock, who was pulling futilely at the handcuff that still encircled his right wrist.

"I can't get this undone. It's stuck." He yanked at it harder, which must have hurt, but he didn't react to it. Sally reached out and caught his small hand to still it.

"I've got a key. See?" She held up her handcuff key with an encouraging smile. He just watched her silently, his face guarded. "Just hold still now."

Still holding onto his hand, she slid the key into the lock and twisted, and the cuff popped open, which finally elicited a small, triumphant grin. She suddenly realized it was probably a good thing she had a hold on him, or he might have suddenly taken off as soon as he was free.

"There, see?"

"Let's go. I want to go home. I want my daddy." He tugged on her hand, trying to pull her toward the door.

"We have to wait for Jo—Jack to come back."

"What if the bad man catches him?"

"They won't. He's sneaky." At that moment, the door, which had been almost closed, started to open, and suddenly Sally felt a little hand close on her trouser leg as Sherlock edged behind her, his body pressed up against the back of her leg. Was Sherlock Holmes afraid after all? Sally had to admit that she was a bit scared too. She put one hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her Taser. Her other hand she carefully laid on Sherlock's back, and was surprised to feel his ropy muscles trembling.

But it was just John coming back, his face grim. He slipped inside and quietly closed the door, then came toward her shaking his head. Oh, shit, was their escape route blocked?

When she raised her eyebrows at him, he glanced down at the top of Sherlock's head where he was still hiding behind her leg, then slipped his phone out of his pocket. She was fairly sure he wasn't going to find any mobile service here (now), and there wasn't anyone he could text or call anyway, so. . .

Ah, he had opened the notes app and was tapping away furiously with his thumbs. After a few seconds he held up the phone and showed it to her.

**Sherlock's dad is out there. He's in on it.**

Crap. That meant they were in a lot more trouble than they had thought. Sally took John's phone and tapped out a reply one-handed.

_What do we do?_

**Let's get him out of here, but we can't take him home. Not yet. We'll hole up somewhere until I figure out what's going on.**

Sally nodded, and John slid the phone back into his jeans pocket. Then he slipped his jacket off and crouched down beside Sherlock, who was peeking out at him from behind Sally's leg.

"Hi, I'm. . . Jack, and this is Shelley," John said in a gentle voice that Sally imagined worked quite well with his smallest patients. "And you're Sherlock, right? We're here to help you. Will you come with us?"

Sherlock looked back and forth between the two of them with narrowed eyes. Sally could almost see the wheels turning in his head, calculating whether he could trust them, but he didn't say anything.

"Ok, I'm going to put my jacket around you and carry you out." He reached out to wrap the jacket around Sherlock, but the boy pushed himself farther back behind Sally's leg. Sally tried to peel him off, but he wasn't having it. His skinny arms just held on tighter.

"Here, come on—" Sally couldn't believe she was really doing this, but she stuck her hands under his armpits and lifted him up, marveling at how light he was. His legs immediately wrapped themselves around her waist and his arms went around her neck so tightly that she could barely breathe. His whole body was taut and vibrating like a drawn bowstring. She slipped an arm under his bum to support him, but she had a feeling she could let go and he would hang there like a baby monkey. "Ok, loosen up there a bit, little man," she whispered in his ear, but he didn't loosen up. If anything, his grip got tighter.

With a patient sigh, John tucked his jacket around Sherlock's hunched shoulders. "Follow me. Stay close," he whispered, his voice as taut as Sherlock's back felt under Sally's hand. John led the way out the door, down the hallway, halting their progress every few feet to listen, and finally out the back door into the cool evening air.

"My house is on Abbotsbury Road, but I don't know how to get back there," said a little voice in Sally's ear. "They put something over my head. I couldn't work out where we were."

"It's all right, mate, we'll get you home. . . Soon," she whispered back. At least she hoped it would be soon. If his dad was in on the kidnapping, then they might have just taken him out of the frying pan into the fire. His whole life would be changed. The implications made Sally's head spin.


	3. Chapter 3: John

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 3: John**

* * *

_Deedle-deedle-dumpling. – Disappointed Sherlock is disappointed. – Don't Panic! - A murder scene, probably. – Tags are itchy – Why are you grinding your teeth if you're not angry? – Bonding over ants and crazy uncles._

* * *

John considered himself lucky to find a cab on the next street, even though most of the shops were shuttered, with boarded-up windows and padlocked iron gates across the doors. He kept looking back at Sally, who was trailing behind with a bundle in her arms consisting of John's jacket, with skinny legs sticking out of the bottom (one shoe off, one shoe on, deedle-deedle-dumpling) and mop of black curls just visible at the top. The fact that this bundle was _Sherlock_ both thrilled and terrified John. They had just changed history, and John realized he had no idea what was going to happen next. He just hoped it wouldn't turn out _worse_ than before.

As he helped Sally into the back seat of the cab, wincing when Sherlock shied away from his touch, he reflected that this wasn't exactly what he had expected when he took off looking for Sherlock. He had expected to ride in like a conquering hero and rescue him, then return him to his parents and take off without being seen. Well, that plan was out the window now.

"Where to?" the cabbie grunted. John considered. They couldn't take Sherlock home, not until he figured out what was going on. He knew no one in this time and place, and had no bolt-holes where they could hide out. But he remembered they had passed a run-down motor inn on their way here. Sally and Sherlock could stay there while he did some investigating. He didn't want to call the police if he could avoid it. He didn't fancy sending Garrison Holmes to prison for faking a kidnapping, at least until he knew the reason behind it.

"Sir? Where to?" the cabby asked again. John realized that Sherlock had lifted his head from Sally's shoulder and was watching him with serious turquoise eyes. John knew he wanted to go home, but unfortunately he was going to have to disappoint him.

"Eurolodge in Clapham Common," he told the cabbie, and the car pulled away from the curb. The eyes glared at him so accusingly that John had to look away.

"You said you'd take me home," said that ridiculous high-pitched voice that John could not get used to. He sounded like a Muppet.

"We will, just. . . not right now. Later, I promise," John replied tightly.

"You're angry," piped the little voice.

"Oh, you deduce emotions now?" John smirked.

"_Jack_," Sally reproved him in a hiss, with a meaningful glance down at the top of Sherlock's head.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing, sorry. Yes, you're right. I'm angry."

"Why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the bad men who kidnapped you."

"It was one man and one lady. The lady smelled like lemons. Her shoes were sharp. The man smelled like cigarettes. Mummy says it's bad to smoke." All of this was said very matter-of-factly, like he was describing the weather. The part about the shoes being sharp set John's teeth on edge, but the anti-smoking rhetoric amused him even more.

"Well, your mummy is right. And don't you forget it." John said. He heard a muffled snort coming from Sally's direction, but he very carefully did not make eye contact with her, or he was going to start laughing, and this did not seem like the time nor place to have a laugh.

Sherlock leaned back a little and frowned up at Sally, eyebrows furrowed. "What's funny?"

"Nothing, little man. Sorry."

Sherlock hrmphed, but seemed satisfied because he laid his head back onto Sally's shoulder, one small fist twisted in her sleeve. Sally shot John a glance that was part smirk, part disbelief. She seemed not to know what to do with her hands, but finally settled on carefully wrapping an arm around Sherlock's back.

* * *

When they reached the hotel, John wasn't sure if perhaps he had made a mistake. The building was more rundown than he had realized, with peeling paint and dodgy, creaking steps leading up to the front door. On the way up the front steps, he heard Sally say quietly in Sherlock's ear, "Just keep your face in my shoulder and don't look up, all right, little man?" Sherlock's curls bobbed up and down in reply.

As soon as John opened the front door, a musty smell, mixed with stale cigarette smoke, rushed out. More peeling paint, and a sagging staircase with worn carpeting lay to their immediate right. A dark hallway straight ahead led to reception, where he could see a glass window, behind which sat a bored-looking woman smoking a cigarette in a long, black holder. The tinny sound of a television drifted out, and as John headed down the hall, he realized that he recognized it: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the television programme, not the later disappointing movie), which he remembered watching with his mother at the age of ten.

The woman, bottle-blond with caked-on makeup in an apparent attempt to disguise her unhealthy pallor, looked up when John got to the window. "Can I help?" she said in a vague tone, with her eyes sliding past John to Sally, who stood behind his left shoulder. Her lips curled downward in distaste.

"Yes, we'd like a room for the night, please," John said evenly, trying to ignore the obvious animosity she was directing toward Sally.

The woman's chin wagged toward Sally. "This your wife?"

"Yes. And my son," he added before she could ask about Sherlock, who as requested was keeping his face hidden in Sally's shoulder.

"I've got a double room. It's en suite so it'll cost you an extra five pounds. Fifteen pounds total, cash only." The look on her face said she didn't think John could afford it.

"That'll be fine," John muttered through gritted teeth. The woman made a skeptical noise and reluctantly pushed the guest book through the slot so John could register. She got only marginally friendlier when John pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and peeled off a twenty pound note. When he said, "Keep the change," her mouth curled upward into a simpering smile and she quickly slipped the bill under the counter. John didn't miss the fact she pulled out another bill, a fiver if he wasn't mistaken, and tucked it into the pocket of her skirt.

The woman rang a bell that was hung on a string above the window. "Eric will take you up." She pulled a key from a hook behind her and held it out to John. "Have you any luggage?"

"No," John said shortly. She looked at him askance, but he didn't elaborate. He couldn't help but notice the woman's quick, disapproving glance at Sherlock's bare foot. John didn't care what she thought of him, but he was finding himself quite annoyed at the obvious racism and classism in the way she glared down her nose at Sally and Sherlock, and he didn't trust himself to speak.

A large young man clumped up behind them. "Yes, ma'am," came a booming voice from somewhere above John's shoulder.

"Ah, Eric, show these folks up to room 212, please."

"Yes, ma'am. Right this way, gov," Eric said, turning and edging his way past Sally (who he ignored completely). He led the way back to the staircase they had passed on their way in. He was so tall that he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the lintel at the doorway. John had no such difficulty.

The room was small, dingy, and poorly lit, which was probably a blessing. John was glad he didn't have a UV light or luminol. He wouldn't have wanted to see what might have shown up on the walls or bedding. The double bed sagged in the middle, and the coverlet was threadbare. A rickety wooden table with peeling laminate, two splintery wooden chairs, and a drooping armchair covered in a ratty afghan completed the ensemble. John could see past the armchair to the doorway of a tired-looking bathroom where he got a peek at worn lino and a chipped porcelain sink. All in all a depressing sight.

As soon as the man had left the room, Sherlock pulled his head away from Sally's shoulder and said, "Did I do it right?"

"Yes, you did fine," John reassured him, and was rewarded with a proud smile from the boy.

"Good. That lady smelled bad. I think she was drinking that bad stuff my nurse drinks sometimes. It makes her mean and stupid," he said nonchalantly, looking around the room with his nose wrinkled. "It smells bad in here too, like something rotten. Do you think maybe someone was murdered in here?"

"Probably," Sally said. John had to turn away to hide his grin.

"Really?" Sherlock's eyes went wide and shiny with excitement.

"Sure," Sally replied, setting him down on the one double bed in the room and rubbing her bicep. "I bet someone got their head blown off right by this bed."

"Wow!" Sherlock slithered off the bed and started looking around on the floor.

Sally moved closer to John and said quietly, "Um—Jack? What's the plan?"

"I'm hungry," piped Sherlock's little voice from where he was exploring a corner of the room, probably looking for bloodstains.

"Well, I suppose we could start by getting something to eat—"

"Fish and chips," Sherlock demanded without looking up. "And chocolate milk."

"I'll go," Sally volunteered immediately.

"You will, huh?"

"Beats being stuck here alone with him. I saw a chips place a block away."

"All right. Get bandages for his wrists too. And see if you can find him some clothes as well. Maybe some pyjamas?"

"Ok, what size?"

"I have no idea. He's five, right? Something that would fit a five-year-old." He pulled a couple of twenty pound notes from his wad of cash and handed them to her.

"I have no idea about kids' sizes. Here, Sherlock, let me see. . ."

He ignored her, so she went over to where he was kneeling peering at the carpet, and pulled back the collar of his shirt. "Damn—I mean, darn, the tag's been cut out."

"It itches me. Mummy cuts them out." Sherlock had pulled back the corner of the rug with both hands and was peering under it.

"Of course she does," Sally said evenly while pulling a face at John.

"I want dinosaur pyjamas," Sherlock announced.

"You do, eh? No promises, but I'll see what I can find." To John she added, "Well, I'm off. If you think of anything else, you could te—oh, right, Never mind. See you in a bit."

And then she was gone, leaving John alone with this tiny stranger who was still kneeling in the corner peering under the carpet, with his skinny back to John. A tiny, suspicious stranger who had taken an unaccountable liking to _Sally Donovan_ of all people, and who apparently believed John was yet another kidnapper to be feared. It would probably be best if John didn't interact with him at all, as had been his original "plan" (if one could call it that, dashing impulsively off to the rescue when the opportunity presented itself). The less they interacted now, the better. He had already changed history by pulling Sherlock out of there. Best not to change it any further.

But on the other hand, here was a pint-sized Sherlock, in the flesh. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet him again for the first time. The temptation proved irresistible.

John went over to where Sherlock was kneeling in the corner and sat down beside him, carefully so as not to disturb him. For a moment, he just stared at the back of his thin neck, which was filthy and dotted with what looked like finger-marks. _Oh, God, he had endured two whole weeks of that?_ "What are you looking at?"

"Ants. See?" He sat back a little and John leaned in to have a look.

"I don't see any ants."

"Well, they're not there now." Sherlock said crossly. He scooched a little farther away from John and looked around the room. "Where's that lady?"

"Um. . . Shelley? She went out to get something to eat, remember?"

"Oh. Is she coming back?"

"Yeah, she'll be back soon. She's going to bring you some fish and chips."

"Then can we go see my daddy?" he asked warily.

"Umm—maybe not right away. I need to make sure it's safe."

"My daddy will beat up that bad man. And the bad lady too." Sherlock's small bruised face screwed up into a fierce scowl.

John wasn't too sure about that, but he couldn't think of anything to say. The scowl dropped. Sherlock's wide serious eyes studied John's face for a moment, and then his lower lip tightened and he said again, "You're angry."

"What? No, I'm not."

"Yes you are," the boy said with an air of finality.

"No, I'm not angry, really."

John felt the serious eyes sweep over his face, from his forehead, along his temple (where he realized belatedly that the muscle was jumping from grinding his teeth) to his jaw and then down to his shoulders (which John discovered were hunched tensely, so he made a conscious effort to relax them), and down his arms to his hands. Finally, the boy's face twisted into a look that John recognized. Oh, God, it was the "We both know what's going on here" face in miniature! Except this time, John did know what conclusion he had come to, he just didn't agree. But what could he say? It didn't seem possible to convince him otherwise at the moment. Maybe a bit of distraction would help. It was a tactic John had learnt by watching Mary, who used it to good effect with the adult Sherlock.

"Tell me about the ants. How do you know they were there?"

"There's bits of wood."

John lay down on his belly next to Sherlock and leaned in closer. Sure enough, he spotted little piles of wood shavings here and there under the carpet.

"And the brown bits are their poop."

"I see."

"They don't eat the wood. People think they do, but they don't. They just make tunnels."

"Really? Tell me something else."

"They like rotten wood. Like in this corner here. I think they live in there." He poked at the wood floor with a finger and it gave slightly. "Can you hear them?"

"No, I can't."

"I can. They'll come out when it's warmer."

"That's brilliant. You're quite clever."

Sherlock paused in his exploration of the corner to shoot John a funny look. "You really think so?"

"Yes, of course," he said with a grin.

"That's not what people usually say."

"Oh?" John's grin widened. "What do they usually say?"

"They usually tell me to shut up." The boy turned back to exploring the corner with his finger.

"Well, what do they know?" John said wryly.

"Not much," Sherlock admitted. "'Specially Mycroft. He thinks he's so clever. He doesn't know _anything_ about ants."

"Right. Well, he's an idiot, isn't he? Big brothers usually are. I should know—I am one myself."

"You are? Is your little brother clever?"

"Sister, actually. And no, I wouldn't call her clever. She's more interested in hair and make-up than insects."

"Girls don't make any sense."

"Well, I have to agree with you on that for the most part, mate. But they do smell nice."

"Yeah. Marjorie Elder smells like peaches." Sherlock's voice sounded a bit wistful.

"You like peaches."

"How did you know that?"

"Oh. . . just a guess. I have a crazy friend who likes peaches."

"He's crazy? My Uncle Rudy is crazy. What does he do that's crazy? Does he dress up like a lady?"

"Well, no. . . but one time he went to Buckingham Palace wearing only a sheet."

Sherlock giggled, a pure, happy sound that was so sweet that John found himself laughing along. He remembered now how much he loved to make Sherlock laugh. That laugh was something he hadn't heard much of lately, and he realized now how much he had missed it.

* * *

**A/N**: Thanks so much for reading! I hope you're having as much fun reading this as I am writing it.


	4. Chapter 4: Sally

**Chapter 4: Shelley**

* * *

_How did this elephant get in my hand? – Sugar makes me crazy – Don't forget your keys – Cigarettes, urine, and old man sweat – Not a so-so-paf. - Shelley knows a brilliant trick._

* * *

Sally went looking for the pyjamas first. There were few shops within walking distance of the hotel, but finally, after wandering at least five blocks in the chill of the evening, she found a Woolworths with a lighted "open" sign in the window. She hadn't seen one of those in years.

At the end of an aisle, past the jumble of baby supplies and household goods, she happened upon an endcap with children's pyjamas in plastic packaging. Since she wasn't sure what size Sherlock wore, and she couldn't look at the pyjamas to check how big they were, she just grabbed a size 5-6 and decided it would do. The shopkeeper, who was mopping the floor, looked like he was anxious for her to leave so he could close up.

Next to the pyjamas stood a shelf full of cuddly toys, and somehow a small grey soft elephant ended up in her hand too. Children found soft toys comforting, didn't they? Not that little Sherlock had appeared to need comforting, even after what he had been through. But still, it seemed like a good idea to bring him something to keep him happy.

She picked up a roll of bandages and tape on her way up front, and on impulse she tossed in a package of jam tarts off the display by the register. She wasn't sure what Sherlock liked to eat, but something sweet probably wouldn't go amiss. The total only came to six pounds fifty, which for some reason she found hysterical.

The fish and chips were easier. No choices to make, just three orders of what was pretty much the only thing on the menu for takeaway. The only wrinkle was they didn't have chocolate milk, only plain. Oh well, it would have to do. Sugar wasn't good for him anyway, although Lord knew he looked like he could use the calories.

When she got back to the hotel, the hotel proprietor was still sitting in the little booth behind the glass, cigarette in one hand and a glass of something brownish in the other. She didn't even look up, and Sally didn't say anything to her. Even though she hadn't said anything at the time, she knew exactly what the woman thought of her and John. She had seen people throw similar looks at her parents many times when she was a child. Black father, white mother, child who was both and neither. Every curled lip, every shuttered face was like a knife to her heart. And it had only got worse after her father passed away. She had only been eleven at the time, but she had been old enough to recognize the assumptions people made when they saw a white woman with a half-black child and no man around. The memories were enough to put her in a foul mood.

That dark mood evaporated when she opened the door to the hotel room to find John and Sherlock both on their bellies in the corner of the room with their heads together. They had the rug pulled back, but at the moment they weren't inspecting the floor. Instead they were both giggling like children.

John turned to the door, and as soon as he saw her he rolled over and sat up, still grinning. "Hello, Shelley. Find us something good to eat?"

"Shelley!" Sherlock said, excitedly bouncing to his feet and bounding over to her. "Look! Look! We found an old beehive! It's in the corner!"

"Not sure I want to see that. Here, Sherlock, I've brought you something," Sally said, pulling the soft elephant from the carrier bag. John's eyebrows went up. Sherlock came running over and snatched it from her hand with gap-toothed grin. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah! This is an African elephant. Did you know its scientific name is Lox-uh-don-tuh Africana?"

"No, I didn't know that," Sally answered truthfully.

"They can weigh up to six tonnes!"

She couldn't help but smirk at that one. It sounded like he was quoting from an encyclopedia. Which maybe he was, come to think of it.

"You bought him a present?" John asked with a note of incredulity in his voice.

"They were right next to the pyjamas," she said defensively.

"Uh-huh."

Sherlock had gone back to the corner and was inspecting the beehive again, with the elephant still clutched in his fist. "Aren't you hungry?" Sally asked. "I've brought you food."

"Fish and chips?" He ran back over, pried the bag from her hands and started pawing through it, but she took it away with a disapproving noise.

"Yes. Go wash your hands and you can have some."

"Ok!" He carefully set the elephant on the bed and zoomed into the attached bathroom, where she could see that he was struggling to turn on the tap that was just out of his reach.

John shot her an indulgent smirk and followed him into the bathroom. She heard a murmur of voices followed by a splash and a muffled curse from John. A moment later, as she was setting out the food onto napkins on the rickety table in the corner, both emerged looking somewhat the worse for wear, Sherlock with water down his front and John drying his hair with a hand towel.

"You two having fun?"

"It was the tap. It sprayed everywhere," Sherlock said innocently while climbing up into one of the wooden chairs. "Where's my chocolate milk?"

"They didn't have chocolate, only plain."

"I don't want plain milk," he pouted, arms crossed and lip out.

"Then you don't have to drink it," Sally replied crisply, taking away the carton of milk. "And you don't have to eat any jam tarts after, either."

"Jam tarts?"

"Yes. Apricot. Don't worry, Jack and I will eat them."

"Maybe I could drink plain milk."

"Well, if you're sure. Wouldn't want to put you out."

"I can drink it. Then I'll eat a jam tart."

"After the fish and chips," John said, pushing the milk back over to Sherlock's spot. "Not that it's much healthier, mind you."

Sherlock grumbled a bit, but Sally and John both ignored him, so he finally started to eat a little. After three bites he pushed the food away. "I'm done. I want a jam tart now."

"You're not done," Sally pointed out. "You've barely eaten any of it."

"I'm not hungry for that. I'm hungry for jam tarts."

Sally raised her eyebrows at John, who shrugged. "One more bite of fish, then you can have a tart," John said in a tone that made Sally wonder if the two of them had had this exact conversation before.

Sherlock scowled, but he picked up the piece of fish and slowly took the tiniest possible nibble from the end. "There. I taked a bite. Now jam tart."

"That was hardly a bite."

"Yes it was. I taked a bite. You didn't say how big it had to be."

John and Sally exchanged a grin over Sherlock's head, that they quickly suppressed when he looked up. "All right, here you go," John said, pulling a tart from the package. Sherlock grabbed it from his hands and fell upon it like a starving animal.

"These are the best kind," he said around a huge mouthful. "Mummy never buys this kind. She says the sugar makes me crazy."

"Uh-huh," John smirked. "Well, good luck with that, Shelley. Do you mind bandaging his wrists? I'm going to find out what's going on."

"Why don't I go?" Sally asked, suddenly panicked at the thought of being left alone with a hyperactive Sherlock.

John shook his head. "I know what his—well, I know who I'm looking for. You don't. I'll be as quick as I can. Ok?" Sally nodded reluctantly while John pulled on his jacket. "Good. You'll be fine. Just don't kill him before I get back," he added in an undertone.

"Then can I go home?" Sherlock piped up.

"I hope so."

"You promised!"

John knelt in front of Sherlock and looked him in the eye. "Yes, I promised I would take you home when I knew what was going on. I didn't promise it would be right away. I have to make sure you're safe. Do you understand?"

The boy's mouth turned down in a scowl. "I guess so. But I don't have to like it."

"I'll do my best to make it soon, yeah?"

"Ok."

"Ok, yeah, good." John ruffled Sherlock's hair with a wistful smile then got up and headed for the door. Just as he was about to close it behind him, Sally noticed the key was still sitting on the bedside table where she had dropped it earlier.

"Oh, John!"

He stuck his head back in. "Yeah, _Shelley_?"

"Oops, I mean—er—Jack, you forgot the key." She tossed it to him and he caught it one-handed.

"Oh, right, I'm always forgetting my keys. Ta."

The door closed behind him with a heavy click and Sally found herself alone with Sherlock Holmes. When she slowly turned around to look at him to make sure he was actually still there, she found him frowning with his arms wrapped around the soft elephant, chin buried in the top of its fuzzy head.

"Why is Jack mad at me?"

"He's not mad," Sally replied, tidying up Sherlock's leftovers into one of the cardboard containers and slinging it into the mini-fridge.

"Yes he is. He keeps doing that thing with his hand."

"What. . . _thing_?"

"Like this." Sherlock imitated a motion that Sally suddenly realized she recognized, closing his stubby fingers into a fist and opening them again. She had seen John do that exact motion many times, and now she thought of it, it was usually when he was tense or angry, which was most of the time these days.

"It means he's mad at me," Sherlock said. There was a touch of hurt and bewilderment mixed in with his fierce tone; just enough to remind Sally that, even though this was Sherlock she was talking to, at this moment he was a little boy who was hurt and mixed-up and homesick.

"He's not mad at you, Sherlock. He's mad at the people who hurt you." She sat down on the edge of the bed and held out her hand. "Come here, let me see your wrist."

He came to her and sort of leaned against her knee, the top of his head tucked under her chin, and held his hand out. She gently took hold of his hand and pushed up the sleeve enough to expose the scraped-up skin encircling his slender wrist. Bits of dirt and dried blood clung to the wound.

With the top of his head so close to her nose, she was reminded of something else: he stunk, a foul mixture of cigarettes, urine, and old-man sweat. "Ew, little man, you need a bath."

"Ok. I like baths."

"You do? Well, all right. It's a plan then."

He just looked up at her like he was waiting for something, but what? "Go on then. Have a bath."

"Ok." He gave her hand a little tug.

"What?"

"I need a bath."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Come on." He tugged her hand again, pulling her toward the en suite bathroom.

"What, you want me to. . . come with you?"

"I can't take a bath by myself." He sounded aghast at the idea. "I might drown."

"No you won't. I'll be just out here. You can even leave the door open a crack."

"Mummy says I can't take a bath by myself. I need a dult. I can't work the faucet."

"You need a dult, eh? I suppose I can start the water for you," she said in amusement.

"I want bubbles," he said with a note of finality, as he carefully laid the elephant on the bed so that it was leaning against the pillow. He looked very serious about the task, as if it were quite important that all the legs be arranged just so.

Grinning, Sally stood up and let him tow her to the en-suite, where she knelt next to the bath and started trying to figure out how the faucet worked. It took her three tries, but she finally managed to get the warm water flowing. Remembering he wanted bubbles, she squirted in some of the small bottle of shampoo that sat on the edge of the tub. That should do.

When she turned around to leave, she discovered that Sherlock had already divested himself of his jumper and shirt (which lay crumpled together in a heap next to him) and was working on his belt.

Oh, God. His pale belly and chest were covered in bruises, mostly small round welts, but also larger purple-blue marks that likely came from a fist or a boot. "Oh, sweetheart. . ." she whispered in horror.

Frowning, he followed her gaze to the bruises. "I told the bad man that the bad lady liked the man with the dog better," he said by way of explanation.

Sally took Sherlock's thin arm, carefully so she wouldn't hurt him more, and gently turned him around. His back was just as bad. "Did that make him angry?"

"No, he just said, 'The man with the dog, huh?' and walked away. She said she wasn't fucking him, but he didn't come back."

Sally blinked at him in surprise at his casual use of the swear, but his eyebrows were pulled together in a look of complete non-comprehension. "Then she called me an arsehole and started kicking me with her sharp shoes."

Well, that was not exactly a surprise, but he didn't seem to understand it at all. He was still tugging at his belt with a confused frown on his face, so she pushed his hands away and loosened it for him. As soon as it was unbuckled, without bothering to undo the button he pushed both trousers and pants down together over his skinny hips, then sat his bare bum on the floor and started pulling them off his feet.

"Oh God." Sally quickly turned away, rolling her eyes, but not before she had gotten an unwanted look at Sherlock in the altogether, a sight which she immediately wished she could unsee. The eyeroll deepened as she heard the sound of him peeing in the toilet behind her.

"What does fucking mean?" he chirped.

Oh God. "Um—it's sort of like kissing. It's what married people do."

"Oh. What does arsehole mean?"

"It's not a nice name to call someone, and you're not to say it."

Suddenly he was standing in front of her again, bare-arse naked and apparently not caring at all. "The lady said it."

"But she was a bad lady, right? It's a bad thing to say. You're not bad."

"Mycroft says I'm bad."

"Well, then don't listen to Mycroft. You're not bad. And you're not a sociopath, either," she added impulsively.

His eyebrows pulled together again. "What's a so-so-paf?"

"Oh, erm—never mind."

"Tell me!"

"Uh—It's an alien from outer space."

That seemed to throw him a little. His frown deepened and his lower lip popped out. "Maybe I'm an alien."

"Sorry?"

"Well, everyone calls me a freak. That's sort of like an alien, I think. I'm weird."

"What?" Sally was suddenly incensed. Who would say that to a kid? "Who says you're a freak?"

"All the kids at school," he said hotly. "Well, Sebastian Wilkes started it, because I figured out he nicked Marjorie Elder's Smarties."

"You did, eh?"

"Yes. When he went to the toilets, he didn't have any chocolate on his shirt, and when he came back, he did. I told the teacher, and they finded the rest of the Smarties in his bookbag, and he started saying I'm a freak, and then everyone else did too."

"You're not a freak, Sherlock." For some reason, it was suddenly very important to her that he believe that.

His eyes cut to the side. "I think maybe I am."

"Sherlock, listen to me. Look at me." His eyes kept skittering away, so she took his chin and forced him to look at her. "You're not a freak. You're not. Understand?"

"Sebastian Wilkes says—"

"Sebastian Wilkes can go fu—can go jump off a bridge. You are _not_ a freak."

His weird blue-green eyes just studied her for a moment, then he shrugged. "Ok. Can I get in the bath now?"

"Oh!" She had forgotten the water was still running. Quickly turning around, she discovered that the bathtub was almost overflowing. "Shi—sorry—oops." She turned the water off, pushed up her sleeve, and reached for the plug. "Here, I'll just let some out. Go ahead and get in."

"Not while the plug's out," came his panicked little voice.

"You won't go down the drain, silly."

"Mycroft says I might. He says I'm too skinny."

"All right, fine." Deciding she had let enough water out anyway, Sally pushed the plug back in. "Now into the tub with you."

She moved back a little, but not quickly enough to avoid being kicked in the shoulder by his small foot as he clambered over the side. "Hey, watch out."

"What?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine. Is the water too hot?"

"No, it's just right," he said with a grin, slapping at the foam. When a puff of bubbles flew up into the air and landed on Sally's head, he started giggling.

"No, none of that. Go ahead and wash up now."

"I don't know how."

"Don't know how to wash yourself? A big boy like you?"

"Mycroft says I'm a baby."

"Really?" Sally muttered under her breath. "Sounds like Mycroft is full of shit."

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind." Sally took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. It looked like she was indeed going to have to give Sherlock Holmes a bath. Don't think of him as Sherlock Holmes. Think of him as just a little boy. A quite adorable little boy who was holding the bottle of shampoo out to her with a hopeful smile on his bruised-up face. "Yes, all right."

She took the shampoo and set it back down on the side of the bathtub. Then she grabbed a glass from the counter. "First you have to get your hair wet. Do you want to lie back, or shall I pour water on your head?"

He looked with trepidation at the glass in her hand. "I want to lie back. But I don't want to put my face under."

"All right, don't put your face under then." She put her hand on the back of his neck to support it. "Go ahead and lie back. I've got you."

As soon as his hair was wet, she applied the strawberry-scented shampoo and scrubbed his hair, working her fingers through the tangled curls and along his scalp. When his hair was sufficiently sudsy, she tried to hand him a flannel to wash the rest of his body, but he just ignored it and kept playing with the bubbles, until she finally sighed and washed him herself, avoiding any of the parts hiding below the water. There was no way she was washing Sherlock Holmes' bum, no matter how old he was.

"All right, time to rinse." She reached for the tap so she could fill up a cup with clean water, but he freaked out.

"No! It'll get in my eyes!"

"Then close your eyes."

"It'll get in my mouth and nose and I'll drown!"

"Sherlock, calm down! I won't let you drown. Look, here." She took another flannel and rolled it up like a sausage. He stopped hyperventilating long enough to watch. "Put this over your eyes," she said, handing him the flannel. He did so, hesitantly. "All right, head back." He obeyed, and she poured the water over so that it flowed off the back of his head and never touched his face at all.

"That was brilliant!" he said, pulling the flannel away from his face. "Can you teach my mummy that trick?"

"Um—sure, little man. All right, ready to get out?"

"I want to play. Mummy always lets me play in the bath."

Sally shrugged. At least it would keep him occupied, hopefully until John returned. "Ok, fine. I'll be just out here then."

"You can't leave!"

"What? Why not?"

"Mummy says I'll drown if I'm alone in the bath."

Sally thought it sounded like Mummy was full of shit too, but she didn't say that. Instead she just sat down next to the tub with a sigh. "All right."

"Give me the other cup."

"Yes, sir."

He seemed not to even notice her sarcastic tone, or the bored look on her face as she settled in next to the bathtub, eyes closed, her fingers drumming out a syncopated rhythm on the edge of the tub. She could hear him splashing about and muttering to himself as he poured the water from cup to cup, but she ignored him.

A moment later she felt something wet on her wrist. When she opened her eyes, she realized that he had taken hold of her hand and was pulling it out over the water. She watched with amusement as he positioned the cup in her fingers at an angle, then poured water into it and watched with a look of intense concentration on his face as it overflowed into the bath. He was using her arm like a tool, she realized, as if it wasn't even connected to a human being. Typical.


	5. Chapter 5: John--er, Jack

**Chapter 5: John—er, Jack**

* * *

_John knows who he's angry with. – Better one piece than two. – The importance of family stability._

* * *

John decided to walk the six blocks back to the warehouse where Sherlock had been held. It would give him time to clear his head. After seeing the bruises on Sherlock's face, and hearing his tremulous voice asking for his daddy, he couldn't help but be angry, and that anger was directed squarely at Garrison Holmes. How could he do this to his own son?

He reflected that he had done a fairly good job of hiding his emotions from Sherlock. He was almost sure the boy didn't suspect what was really going on, although with Sherlock, one never knew. He found it amusing that little Sherlock seemed to be more perceptive of emotions than the adult version. it had always amazed (and frustrated) him that Sherlock could be so good at deducing a person's past actions from almost invisible clues, but couldn't deduce emotional states even when they were written all over their face. Emotional reactions always seemed to catch him by surprise, and he never seemed to know how to respond. It made him appear almost robotic, but also somehow more human, John supposed. Vulnerable. A weak spot in his tough facade.

The little guy was tough, John had to admit that. Even after being kidnapped and obviously abused, he hadn't been crying. John realized that he shouldn't be surprised that Sherlock hadn't cried. Sherlock never cried. Well, not for real. There had been that one time, when he had been standing on the edge of the roof. . . John had been convinced that those tears were real at the time, but later, after he'd turned up again alive, all full of himself, pleased as punch that he had played John for a fool. . . well, John had realized that those tears were just another part of the game, which hurt almost worse than the betrayal that followed. But John had gotten over it. He was definitely over it. Right? And Sherlock was his best friend again, and vice-versa. Sherlock had even said so, at his wedding. So why had John winced when little Sherlock flinched away from him and clung to Sally Donovan? Why had he felt an unexpected pang of jealousy when Sherlock had been so excited about the soft elephant Sally brought him?

Shoving those thoughts aside, he tried to focus on thinking what to do. He couldn't return Sherlock to his kidnappers, who had probably figured out by now that he was gone. There was no way he would allow Sherlock to be tortured for two damn weeks if he could prevent it. He didn't feel comfortable taking him home either, not until he knew why his dad had done this. His only hope was to somehow catch Mr Holmes on his own and find out from him what was going on.

John came around the corner next to the derelict warehouse just in time to see, in the dim glow of the streetlamps, two people coming out of the alleyway, a man and a woman. He quickly ducked into a doorway alcove opposite and watched. The man was too short and stocky to be Sherlock's dad, so it must be the kidnappers (the "bad man and bad lady", according to Sherlock).

As John watched, they turned in the other direction and headed off down the street on foot. When he judged them to be a safe distance ahead, he followed as noiselessly as possible. Of course, if they were to turn around, they would spot him, but at the moment they seemed to be deep in angry conversation, judging by the man's quick steps and how he jerked away when the woman attempted to touch his arm.

They walked two, three, four blocks in the semi-dark, with John sticking close to the buildings and following at a distance. He hoped they got to their destination soon, and didn't suddenly jump into a car and leave him behind, or he would never figure out what was going on. He was getting increasingly nervous walking in such a sketchy area in the evening.

Another block on, his quarry turned left into a side door alcove of a seedy-looking building, low-set with darkened windows. If John had to guess, he would have to say it was either a drugs den or a location for off-books gambling. Probably the latter as all the windows were intact and he spotted a beefy watchman guarding the front door. He ducked into a dark alleyway and watched from the shadows, hoping none of them spotted him. He was just close enough that their voices carried to him, audible but low enough that he had to strain to make out the words.

"Think he'll come back?" came a woman's voice.

"Oh, yeah, he'll come back. He wants his kid back, don't he?"

"What if he finds out we don't got him?"

"How could he find out? You ain't planning on telling him, are you?"

"No! Can't say I'm sorry he's gone. Little wanker."

"I've got your Ivan on it. He'll find the little bastard."

"I told you before, he's not my—"

The man held up a hand to stop her as an expensive-looking black sedan pulled up and parked in the alleyway. John couldn't see the face of the man who got out of the driver's seat, but the way he walked and the set of his shoulders reminded John of Sherlock. This had to be Garrison Holmes. As he approached the two standing in the door alcove, the man spoke up.

"So, where's my money?"

"I haven't got it yet. I'm working as fast as I can."

"Shouldn't have made a bet you couldn't cover, Holmes."

"I thought you were gonna get it from your wife," the woman put in. "You said she was loaded."

"She hasn't got it either. It's her parents' money."

"Then get it from them."

"It'll take some time. They have investments. . ."

"The quicker I get my money, the quicker you'll get your kid back."

"Please, don't hurt my son."

"If I get my money in a week, you'll get him back in one piece."

John still couldn't see Garrison Holmes' face, but the panic was evident in his voice. "What if it takes longer than that?"

"Well then, maybe you'll get him back in two pieces."

The woman's high-pitched giggle floated across the street. John saw Mr Holmes' shoulders hunch, and then the man leaned in closer. "A week is a long time, Mr 'Olmes. Be careful or I'll get tired of the little shit. Then who knows what I'll do to shut him up?"

"Please—I want to see him. I need to know he's all right."

"You can see him when I get my money, Mr 'Olmes. Don't worry, he's being well taken care of. Now why don't you come on in and have a drink to steady your nerves?" He wrapped an arm around Garrison Holmes' shoulders and started steering him toward the front door.

"I need to get back home. My wife thinks I've just gone out for a walk. . ."

"After you've had a few belts, my boy. Liquid courage to face the in-laws."

Garrison Holmes still looked back at his car reluctantly, but allowed himself to be guided into the front door of the building. By the way he stumbled a bit over the threshold, John was fairly sure he had already partaken of a bit of "liquid courage" before this meeting.

Realizing he had got as much as he was going to get from this reconnaissance mission, John emerged from the alleyway and headed back toward the hotel, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. At least he knew now why Garrison Holmes had agreed to this kidnapping, but he was still conflicted as to what to do next. Returning Sherlock to his parents wouldn't solve the problem of his father's gambling debts (and may get his father killed to boot), but if he exposed the plot to Sherlock's mother, it would put their family stability in jeopardy, and he knew that, no matter how much Sherlock might complain about his parents, he relied on that stability to balance out his own capricious nature.


	6. Chapter 6: Shelley

**Warning: **I cannot be held responsible for tooth decay caused by overdose of sweet in this chapter. Read at your own risk.

* * *

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Shelley**

* * *

_Not dinosaurs – Sally needs peace and quiet, preferably now. – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. – I wanna hear the part where they kill him. – Strawberry-scented curls._

* * *

Sherlock didn't know how to dry himself off either, apparently, or put on his own goddamned pyjamas, so Sally found herself doing these things for him as well while he babbled on about observations he had made about his classmates, or some bit of nonsense Mycroft had told him. Sally, who didn't have a wealth of experience dealing with young children, found herself wondering whether all five-year-olds spouted constant gibberish, or if this one was unusual.

After she had pulled the shirt over his head and guided his unresisting arms through the sleeves, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence and said, "What's on this pyjama top? I wanted dinosaurs."

"Oh. . . um. . ." Sally had only been half-listening to him, and the sudden question caught her by surprise. She hadn't had a chance to examine the pyjamas closely, as they had been wrapped in plastic when she had bought them. It wasn't like there were a lot of choices anyway. "Looks like the solar system."

He frowned down at the front of the shirt. "What's that?"

"You know: sun in the center—" she poked the sun in the middle of his belly, eliciting a giggle. "Planets orbiting the sun. This one's Earth."

The top had snaps at the hem that apparently were intended to connect it with the pyjama bottoms, but damned if she could figure out how to make the two parts match up, especially since he was squirming all over the place trying to see the design on the top. "Hold still please," she grunted. She had to get the two parts to connect, or there was no way the bottoms were going to stay up on his skinny hips.

"That's Earth? Where we live? I thought it was in the middle and the sun went 'round it."

"Nope. The sun's in the middle." She twisted the top around a bit and finally got the snaps connected. "Ok, come on out here and let's bandage your wrists now."

He allowed her to guide him out of the bathroom, still looking down at his shirt with a thoughtful expression while she fetched the bandages from where she had dropped them on the bedside table. "Come on, sit here on the bed."

He didn't look up, so she picked him up under the armpits and deposited him on the bed. It only took her a moment to wrap his wrists and apply the tape, while he prattled on again about ants and bees and she didn't know what else because she had pretty much completely stopped listening. It amused her that a boy who knew the scientific name for the African elephant and European honey bee had never heard of the solar system, but she figured it made sense, considering this was Sherlock they were talking about here.

When she finished, she gave him a pat on his damp head and said, "Right, all done." His hair was a tangled mess, but there was no way she was tackling those curls, especially as she had no comb or pick.

"What are we doing now?" he asked eagerly.

"Well, I'm going to go sit in that chair over there—" she pointed at the sagging armchair in the corner "—and enjoy some silence. You could go to sleep if you like. Or just lie down and have some silence now too."

His eager smile vanished. "You want me to shut up."

"I wouldn't put it quite like that, but. . . well, a bit of quiet would be nice, yeah."

"Oh."

Satisfied, Sally dropped into the chair and closed her eyes. God, kids were exhausting. Well, she didn't know enough kids to know if all of them were so hard, or just this particular kid. It took _work_ just to listen to him. He seemed to have a serious motor mouth and boundless energy. A regular Energizer Bunny.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a rhythmic squeaking of the bedsprings. What the hell? She opened her eyes to find Sherlock jumping on the bed, hair flying with each bounce.

"Stop that," she demanded.

"Why?" he asked without stopping. "You said be quiet. I'm not talking."

"Well, you can't do that either."

The jumping continued. "Why not?"

"Because. . . because you might break the bed."

"It won't break."

"Just stop!"

He hmphed with a very put-out expression on his face, but he did what she asked, so she closed her eyes again and tried to relax into the lumpy chair. When would John be back, she wondered. And would he say they could leave now? _Please_? And how were they to get back "home"?

Sally's thoughts were interrupted a second time by something hard hitting her leg. When she opened her eyes, she found a book in her lap. Not just any book, it was the Bible from the bedside table. The book was followed by the soft elephant, then Sherlock, who grabbed a fistful of her trouser leg and used it to haul himself up into her lap.

"Read to me," he said, pushing the Bible into her hand.

"What?" she laughed. "Don't you know how to read?"

"Don't laugh at me!" he said as he settled his bony back in against her chest, arms wrapped around the elephant. "I can read but these letters are too small. I'm already in first year. I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not stupid. You're very clever."

"Mycroft says I'm stupid. That's why I runned away from him."

"You ran away?"

"Uh-huh. At the park. The bad man catched me."

"Oh." So that was how they had managed to separate him from his brother. Sherlock had done it on purpose.

"Read," he demanded.

Sally hesitated, not sure what to do with her arm, but he snuggled in against her and pulled her arm around himself so she could hold the book. Well, it looked like she was going to be reading Sherlock Holmes a bedtime story, whether she liked it or not. The boy seemed to be a master at getting what he wanted.

She flipped open the Bible to a random spot near the beginning and scanned the pages. She wasn't too familiar with the layout of the Bible, but after a minute she spotted a story she recognized: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—well, the Bible didn't call it that exactly, but she was pretty sure it was the same story.

"Ok, I'll read you the story of Joseph."

"Who was Joseph?"

"Well, you'll find out if you listen, won't you?"

"I don't know yet."

"_Just listen_. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them-"

"What does tending the flocks mean?"

"It means taking care of the sheep."

"Oh. I'd rather take care of bees."

"Well, I don't think Joseph had that choice."

"You said his father's wives. Did he have more than one?"

"Um, I don't know." Ok, she did, but she wasn't feeling up to explaining polygamy to a five year old.

"Maybe his dad got vorced. Marjorie Elder's parents got vorced and now she gets two Christmases. AND two birthdays." It was obvious by his voice that he considered this enormously unfair.

"Maybe. Are you ready to hear the next part of the story?"

"Yes."

"Ok. Good. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him."

"What does ornate mean?"

"Like fancy, I guess. Decorated."

"Oh. I wouldn't want to have any 'nate robe. Maybe a dressing gown like my daddy's."

"I bet you'll have one of those someday. Maybe more than one. But I think Joseph liked his robe. May I continue?"

"Yes."

"When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, 'Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.' His brothers said to him, 'Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?' And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said."

Sherlock rested his head in against the curve of Sally's neck, his damp hair tickling her chin. She heard a small slurping sound, and when she peeked around the cloud of dark curls, she discovered he was sucking his thumb, with the elephant's silky ear brushing against his nose.

"Keep going," he directed, his voice muffled from the obstruction in his mouth.

"Oh. Sorry. Let's see. . . Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. 'Listen," he said, 'I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.' When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him—"

"What does 'buked mean?" Sherlock asked, sitting up a little.

"_Re_buked. Got mad at him."

"Like Jack is mad at me."

"I already told you, he's not mad at you. I promise."

"Ok." Sherlock settled back in against her, the curve of his body matching hers, and the slurping sound continued.

"Joseph's father said, 'What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?' His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind-"

"He's like me," Sherlock interrupted, talking around his thumb. "'Cept I've only got one brother that hates me."

"I don't think he hates you."

"Yes he does. He tells me scary stories and bosses me around. He won't listen to me when I tell him to stop."

Sally couldn't help the little grin that sprang to her lips with that statement. Not that it was funny, exactly, because to him it obviously wasn't. "I'm sorry to hear that, mate. Is this story scaring you?"

"No. I like this story. I like you too," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Sally almost choked in surprise. "I—uh—I like you too, little man," she managed to get out, and was surprised to discover that it was true. The way he snuggled in against her, his little thumb in his mouth, even the incessant questions, were all sort of heartbreakingly endearing.

He wrapped his hand around one of her ringlets and rubbed a lock between his fingers. "I like your hair too. It's springy. Mine's got curls too, but it's not springy."

"Uh—thanks, I guess."

"It's like a helix." He brushed the curl against his nose. "You smell nice. You smell like my mummy."

"I _do_?"

"Mm-hmm. Keep reading."

She chuckled. "All right. Where was I. . .um—Oh yes. . . Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, 'As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.' 'Very well,' he replied. So he said to him, 'Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.' Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. . ."

"His daddy shouldn't send him off all by himself. He might get kib-napped."

"Hmm, maybe you're right. . ."

"Where's Shechem?"

"How should I know?" Sally scanned ahead in the story. It was quite long, so she figured she might be able to get away with skipping some of it. "So. . . Joseph went after his brothers and found them . . . But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. 'Here comes that dreamer!' they said to each other. 'Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams.'"

"They're going to kill him?!"

"Oh, sorry, maybe this isn't such a nice story after all. Let me find another one."

"No!" Sherlock grabbed her hand to prevent her from turning the page. "This one is good. I want to know what happens next."

Sally snorted. "All right, you morbid little fr—er—nutter."

Apparently satisfied, Sherlock took hold of her hair again and twisted a curl around his finger. Sally skimmed the next few lines. . . skip. . .skip. . .skip. . . "So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—and they took him and threw him into the cistern—"

"What's a cistern?"

"Like a well, I guess. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh—"

"They had bombs?!"

"Sorry? Oh, not bombs, _balm_."

"What's that?"

"I don't know, like medicine, maybe. You made me lose my place. . ."

"I wanna hear the part where they kill him."

"Right, of course you do. And they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, 'What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.' His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt."

"Oh, so they didn't kill him?"

"Don't sound so disappointed. Listen to what happens next." Hmm. . .skip to the interesting part . . "Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, 'We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe.' He recognized it and said, 'It is my son's robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.'"

Sherlock wiggled a little in excitement. "That's a pretty good trick!"

Sally was pretty sure he was missing the point of the story, but she pressed on anyway. "Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. 'No,' he said, 'I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.' So his father wept for him."

Sally waited for Sherlock to say something else, maybe ask what sackcloth was (which she had no idea), or make some sort of suggestion about how his father could have figured out it wasn't Joseph's blood, but no question came. The sucking sounds had stopped too. She carefully peeked around and discovered that his eyes were closed and his thumb was hanging mostly out of his mouth. With his other hand he still had ahold of a lock of her hair.

_Asleep_. Sherlock Holmes had just fallen asleep on her.

She considered getting up and putting him to bed, but she was afraid to disturb him. Also, if she were being honest she would have to admit that she was sort of enjoying having him sleep on her. She gently took hold of the little baby hand that was tangled in her hair and marveled at the dimples at the knuckles. When she hesitantly stroked the back of his hand with her thumb, she discovered that his skin was soft as velvet. His hair, which was almost dry now, smelled good, like strawberries. Oh, it was probably wrong for her to bury her nose in his curls and inhale deeply, but she couldn't help it.

* * *

**A/N**: The story of Joseph comes from Genesis 37. I "borrowed" the New International Version.


	7. Chapter 7: Jack

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Jack**

* * *

_John needs to shut up. – snip snip – The universe is rarely so lazy. – Looks can be deceiving. – When Sherlock met Sally – John is NOT mad, honestly!_

* * *

John wasn't sure what he would find when he got back to the hotel room (perhaps Sally Donovan kneeling over Sherlock's dead body?), but it wasn't the sight that greeted him when he opened the door: Sally sitting in the ratty armchair holding a sleeping Sherlock on her lap, his thumb hanging out of his mouth and the soft elephant clutched in his fist. Sally's head popped up quickly, but John was fairly sure she had been in the middle of smelling Sherlock's hair.

"Shut up," Sally hissed.

"I'm not saying a word," John smirked. He dropped the key onto the bedside table and went over to help Sally, who was having some difficulty standing up without dropping Sherlock.

"Help me put him on the bed. But be careful, he's got my hair."

Together they got him onto the bed, and Sally carefully untangled his fingers from her hair so she could stand up. "Ouch, my arm is asleep," she said, massaging her shoulder. "He's heavier than he looks."

"I can't believe you rocked him to sleep."

"Ha ha. He brought me the Bible and insisted I read to him. He's quite the little manipulator."

"You don't say," John grinned.

"Here, you've got to look at this." Sally sat down on the bed next to Sherlock, who had curled up on his side with his arms wrapped around the elephant, and started fussing with the hem of the pyjama top.

"Is the top snapped to the bottoms?"

"Yes, and it's a bloody pain. But good job they snap together or the bottoms would fall down off his skinny bum. Kid's got snake hips. And of course I didn't even think of getting him pants." With a shudder, she pulled a little harder and the snaps came undone. "There. Look at this."

She pulled up the top and John got a glimpse of Sherlock's pale torso, dotted with purple-black bruises in various shapes and sizes. John's stomach gave a lurch. This is what he had been hoping to protect him from, but apparently he had failed. Well, maybe not entirely. At least it had only been a few hours of torture rather than two weeks.

"What about. . ." John gently folded down the waistband of the pyjama bottoms and spotted a small, round burn, raised and red, on Sherlock's hip.

Sally's intake of breath told him she recognized it for what it was. "I didn't even notice that."

"I thought we might have gotten to him before that happened, but apparently not. He had three scars, but I only see one, so I suppose that's something."

"He never complained. I put him in a hot bath and he never said it was hurting him. He's pretty tough."

"He's got a high pain tolerance. You gave him a bath?"

"Yes. He insisted he couldn't do it on his own. He certainly wasn't shy about stripping off in front of me." Sally's face had reddened slightly. "I now know his—um—status."

"Status?"

"You know. . ." She made a vague scissors motion. Ah.

"Never mind; I don't want to know."

"You mean you didn't know already?"

John made a face. "God, no! Flatmates and friends, that's all. I'm married!"

"All right, all right. You said he had three scars?"

"Yeah, 'little smokies' is what we call them in the surgery. Cigarette burns."

"How is it you've seen those and not his. . . you know?"

"I've had to bandage him up a few times. He's got a few other scars too, I think from this but he never told me much. I had to get the details, such as they were, from Mycroft. He had awful screaming nightmares about it, and I needed to know what was going on."

"I never knew he was having nightmares."

"Well, he wouldn't exactly tell you, would he? No offense intended," he added hastily at the expression on her face.

"None taken. It's no secret we don't get on."

"The first time he had a nightmare right after I moved in, I went down to check on him. I didn't know what all the shouting and thumping was about. I touched him on the shoulder, and he tried to punch me in the face. Fortunately PTSD means quick reflexes. I ducked, he threw a pillow at me and shouted at me to leave. The next day he said never to touch him if he's having a nightmare."

John tried to fix the snaps on Sherlock's pyjamas, but finally had to give up and let Sally do it. When she was done, she lay down on the other side of the bed with a yawn. "God, I'm tired. Taking care of this kid is exhausting."

"I don't doubt it. Taking care of an adult Sherlock is tiring enough."

Sally rolled over to her side to face John. Between them Sherlock sighed and pulled the elephant in against his chest. "John, what are we doing here?" Sally asked. "I mean, honestly, how did we get here?"

"I wish I knew." John tucked a pillow behind his back and lay back against the headrest. He supposed he could stick around a few more minutes before heading off to confront Sherlock's dad. "Funny, I was just talking to Sherlock about this the other day."

"About being kidnapped?"

"Yeah."

"That's seems an odd coincidence. Why were you talking about it?"

"Well, I stayed over a couple of nights ago. . ." He trailed off because Sally was giving him a look. "Not like that! We had spent all day trying to track down the Wizard and it was late. I stayed in my old room. Well, he woke up shouting again, and I tried again to get him to talk about what happened, but he wouldn't tell me. Said it was ancient history."

"Don't you think it's odd we ended up here, after that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's odd we ended up at the right time and place to intervene."

"I suppose it is, but I don't think I caused it. How would I have done that?"

"I have no idea. It must mean something, though. What if we're stuck here? I mean, what if we can't get home—back to our time, whatever?"

"I don't know. I don't want my daughter growing up without me. . . but I suppose we'd get there eventually, right? That is, if we went back in time, eventually we'll get back to the present. We'll just be a bit. . . older."

"What do we do in the meantime, keep Sherlock and raise him? Can you imagine trying to parent him?"

"I don't have to imagine," John said ruefully. "Been there, done that, made a right mess of it."

"How he turned out is hardly your fault. I blame his mum. Damn kid can't do a bloody thing for himself."

"I've noticed that," John said with a wry chuckle.

"What did you find out about his dad?"

"Oh. His dad has some gambling debts and the ransom was to pay them off. Sounds like they forced him into it. He thought he could get the money from his wife's family, but it seems there is less left than he thought."

"Doesn't excuse this."

"No, but he's terrified of what's happening to Sherlock. They threatened to kill him if he doesn't pay up."

"What can we do?"

"I don't know. We could give Sherlock back to his mum, but that won't help his dad. They're likely to kill him if they can't get their money."

"We could turn them in to the police," Sally suggested. "He'll be in jail but at least he'll be alive."

"What if they come after Sherlock again, or his mum? And I can't imagine how Sherlock would turn out without a stable family to keep him in check." John shook his head. "I've got to go talk to him. I'll go in a bit. I want to catch him at his house, give him a chance to come clean with his wife."

Sherlock mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over onto his back, one arm thrown up over his head. His curls were sweaty and mashed to his head on the side he had been lying on.

"He looks so cute and innocent like this," Sally said. "Too bad he's such an arsehole." Despite her harsh words, she reached out and gently smoothed the damp hair back off his forehead with a half-smile.

"What do you have against him? I mean, I know he's insensitive and a show-off, and he has no mouth-brain filter, but he's really not _that_ bad."

"Oh, that's right. You don't know."

"Know what? What happened?"

Donovan chewed her lip. "Do you know who DC Nikola Kim was?"

"No, never heard of her."

"She was my partner. Almost nine years ago—6 May, 2007, I remember it exactly—we were working on a case, cop killer, and Lestrade brought Sherlock in. He had it all figured out, but instead of just _telling_ us, he decided to catch the bloke by leading us right into a trap, and of course we had to follow him in because he was a civilian and we had to protect him. He thought backup would get there in time and no one would get hurt. But Nikola. . . Nikola was killed."

"Oh, God."

"When I shouted at him about it, he called it 'bad timing' and never did even apologize." Sally was gently stroking Sherlock's hair while she said all of this. John wondered if she even realized what she was doing.

"I found out later that he was high. Nikola trusted him with her life, and he let her down. I've never trusted him with anything again." Sally's hand drifted down Sherlock's chubby baby cheek to his neck, and then down his arm. Her face looked so sad that John felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her. There had been a time, right after Sherlock had jumped off that roof, that John had blamed her for everything, and he had spent the next two years studiously avoiding and ignoring her. Then after Sherlock had come back, John didn't know what to think, because obviously he had played both of them, and apparently didn't really even care, because despite his multiple apologies, he had still thought it funny to deceive John again in order to trick him into forgiving him.

"Lestrade set it up for him to go into rehab instead of having charges laid against him for obstructing justice, not that we could pin anything on him anyway." Sally continued. "He didn't want to go but his brother made him do it. He never saw it as his fault, but if it hadn't been for his idiotic. . ."

Sally trailed off, staring at the far wall. John didn't know what to say. He was about to open his mouth to apologize on Sherlock's behalf, when Sally continued. "Nikola had a husband and a daughter, Lyra. She's 14 now, clever as they come. We set up a scholarship fund for her to go to University. It's got almost 40,000 pounds in it. She could go anywhere she wanted, but do you know what she wants to do? Be a police officer like her mum and Auntie Sally. I've been trying to talk her out of it."

"So that's why. . . I asked Sherlock once why you hated him so much. I was angry with you for calling him a freak. He told me you had good reason and that I should drop it. I asked if he had tried apologizing for whatever it was, and he said it wasn't that simple."

"An apology might have helped, but I don't know that I would have accepted it. Probably still wouldn't."

John nodded down at her hand, which was still gently caressing Sherlock's arm. "Does that mean you've forgiven him?

Sally looked down at her hand and groaned. "Oh, it's not fair that he's so soft. Here, feel this." She took hold of John's hand and put it on Sherlock's arm, just below the elbow. When John obediently brushed his thumb over the skin, he couldn't help but match Sally's smile.

"That's amazing. Feels like velvet."

"I know, right?"

"This is probably wrong for us to be doing this. Sort of feels like we're taking advantage of him."

"He's asleep. He'll never know."

"Suppose not. He's taken a bit of a shine to you, hasn't he?"

Sally gave a sort of incredulous laugh. "Seems so. He said I smell like his _mummy_."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and you know what that means? It means I've always smelled like his mother and he's never told me before."

"That's sort of sweet."

"Yeah, he's making it hard to hate him. I guess. . . I can't really blame this little chap for something he hasn't even done yet, can I?"

John smiled down at Sherlock's little sleeping face, all curves where the adult Sherlock was angles. "It's hard to be angry with him when he's so adorable, isn't it?"

"You are angry with him, aren't you?"

"What? No I'm not."

"He thinks you are. And, well, I can sort of see where he got the idea. You move like you're angry."

"I'm mad at his dad for doing this."

"No, John, not just right now. All the time. That thing you do with your hand."

"What thing I do?"

"You keep clenching your fist, like you're ready to pop off and punch someone."

"I don't do that. I'm not angry."

"Ok, whatever you say," Sally said through a yawn, eyes sliding closed. "Whatever."

"I'm not angry," John repeated, but he got no response. After a moment he realized Sally was asleep, with her arm draped across Sherlock's waist. John sighed. He needed to go back out and confront Sherlock's dad, but now Sally had given him something to think about first. Was he angry? He didn't think so, not anymore, but he couldn't say there were no unresolved issues, between him and Sherlock, and between him and Mary. But he didn't think he was still angry about them. He just didn't know how to fix them. And now how could he fix them if he were stuck in the past, maybe forever? Well, not forever. Time would still pass, right? This was so confusing. John didn't do well with confusing. He was a man of action: he liked things straightforward and uncomplicated. Overanalysis just led to paralysis.

Yeah, time to take action. He had to get up and go confront Garrison Holmes. He'd do that soon. He just needed to close his eyes for a minute first. . .

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**A/N**: Your reviews are much appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8: Shelley

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 8: Shelley**

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_Still not a dream. – A knock at the door. – My daddy wouldn't do that. – Don't do something you'll regret. – Sally melts._

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Sally woke to a sharp pain in her back.

_Thump. Thump. Thump_.

And then a high-pitched scream. "No! Nooo!"

She rolled over to find a pint-sized Sherlock thrashing about on the bed, arms and legs flailing, eyes wide and staring. "Leave me alone!" he shouted. "Daddy! DADDY!" That last was shrieked at the top of his lungs. Well, so much for her lingering hope that this was all just a dream.

On the other side of Sherlock, John sat up in the bed, blinking and rubbing his eyes. "What the hell? Oh shit, I fell asleep." John's hair stood up at angles in the back and his face was creased from the pillow.

Sally reached out to try to shake Sherlock out of his nightmare, but John shook his head. "No, don't touch him, remember?" John backed up, out of arm's reach, and Sally did the same, just in time to avoid taking a tiny fist to the head.

"Sherlock?" John said softly. "Sherlock? It's all right. You're safe."

The boy suddenly sat bolt upright, with his skinny chest heaving spasmodically. "Don't hurt me!" he cried, arms flying up to protect his head.

"Sherlock? It's ok. I'm here." John's voice was calm and gentle. "No one's going to hurt you."

At the sound of John's voice, Sherlock's head jerked his direction, and he stared at John wide-eyed for a second, then scrambled off the foot of the bed and backed away. "No! I want my daddy!"

John stood up too, slowly, hands out at his sides in a non-threatening posture. "It's ok," he repeated quietly. Sally stayed still, not wanting to startle Sherlock in case it caused him to suddenly bolt. She could see his every muscle quivering; his eyes darted back and forth looking for an escape route.

Slowly John crouched down to Sherlock's level and held out his arms. "You're safe now, Sherlock."

Another long moment passed with Sherlock rooted to the spot, trembling and breathing spasmodically, then suddenly he dashed into John's embrace, threw his slender arms tightly around John's neck and clung to him for dear life. John wrapped one arm under Sherlock's bum, the other around his back, picked him up and held him close, whispering softly into his ear as he paced the room to calm him.

Sally wasn't sure what John was saying, but after a moment Sherlock quieted. His little fingers were still clutching fistfuls of John's shirt collar, but his grip had loosened a bit, and his breathing had slowed. John's eyes were tightly closed and his lips were pressed together in a straight line. Sally looked away because she suddenly felt like she was intruding on something private.

A loud knock on the door interrupted the moment. Sherlock immediately jerked his head up from John's shoulder, eyes blown wide with terror, while John and Sally both froze. Sally could hear her heart thumping in her ears, and when she exchanged a glance with John, she was sure he felt the same.

"Shh," John soothed Sherlock in a whisper. "Just stay quiet." The boy's head bobbed up and down, and John added "Good boy."

"Sir? Ma'am?" came a booming voice. "It's Eric."

Sally let out a rush of breath. Eric, the porter. Of course. At a nod from John, she went over and opened the door a crack to see the tall lump of a man standing outside. The top of her head was even with his chest. She had to crane her neck to look up into his face, which might as well have had the words "not too clever" tattooed across it.

"Ma'am? Everything all right?"

"Yes, we're fine."

"Are you sure? Folks been complaining 'bout the shouting."

He was trying to peer in through the crack in the door, so Sally opened it a little wider so he could see that everyone was fine.

"My. . . son just had a nightmare," John said. "He's all right now."

As soon as the pale light from the hallway fell on Sherlock's bruised face, Eric's slack mouth morphed into an expression of concern. "What happened to you, mate?"

Sherlock hesitated. For a brief moment, Sally was afraid he was going to blurt out that he had been kidnapped, and then the game would be up. But instead he said, "It was a dinosaur."

Eric's thick eyebrows pulled together. He seemed to be having trouble making sense of this answer. "A dinosaur?" he said finally.

Sherlock shot Sally a panicked glance. What did he expect? "Oh, erm—a boy at school hit him with a toy dinosaur. Teddy, was it, love?"

"No, it was Mykie," Sherlock rejoined immediately (with a note of relief in his voice that Sally hoped Eric wouldn't notice). "He hates me."

"Your daddy didn't hit you?"

"No, my daddy wouldn't do that," Sherlock said earnestly.

Eric's dim eyes moved slowly back and forth between Sherlock and John, and finally to Sally, as if she would give him the answer to what was really going on here, so he didn't have to puzzle it out on his own.

"It's fine, really," she assured him, putting on a strained smile.

"Yeah, all right, ma'am. Just checking."

"We understand. Good night now."

After another moment's hesitation, Eric backed out the door and Sally quickly pushed it shut with a sigh of relief. When she turned to John, who still had Sherlock on his hip, she didn't see relief there. He looked angry.

"I've got to fix this," he said tightly. "I think I know how. At least it won't be worse."

He put Sherlock down on the floor, then he turned around and pulled something out of the drawer in the bedside table. He had his back to her, but Sally caught a glimpse of him tucking something into the inside pocket of his jacket before he turned back around with his phone in his hand. Sally gave a start when she saw the phone, but she didn't say anything. Sherlock didn't either, thankfully, just watched John warily.

"Shelley, back up. Hold still, Sherlock." John held up his phone and Sally could tell he was taking pictures, even though the phone made no sound. "Good lad." John's hand came out and gently smoothed Sherlock's hair with an encouraging smile that came nowhere near his eyes, which were full of a quiet rage that Sally found a bit frightening.

John snapped another photo, this one of the room phone (rotary dial—how quaint), tucked his mobile into his pocket and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. Don't wait up."

Sally hurried to get in front of him before he could get out the door. She had an idea of what John had tucked into his pocket, and she didn't think it was the best idea for him to confront Sherlock's dad armed, not in his current frame of mind. "John, have you got your gun with you?" she asked quietly, eyes flicking to the little boy who was still watching them wide-eyed with the soft elephant pressed against his mouth.

"Why?"

"Don't take it."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not. Don't do something you'll regret. Not now. You don't know what the repercussions could be."

"I won't—I'm not—Ok, I'm angry, but I won't—"

"Give it to me. Please."

John wavered for a moment, then his eyes also flicked to Sherlock, who was still watching anxiously, and his gaze softened, just a little. "Yeah, you're right." He turned his body a bit so his movement would be hidden while he pulled his gun from his coat pocket and handed it to Sally, who slipped it under her shirt.

"Good choice," she whispered, and he favored her with a tight, humourless smile. Then he stepped out the door and closed it noiselessly behind him, leaving Sally alone with Sherlock again.

Keeping her back to him, she moved nonchalantly to the bedside table and ditched the gun in the back of the drawer. Then she turned to find the boy still staring at the door with an anxious, lost look on his little bruised face.

"Sherlock? He'll be back soon, honey."

"I want to go home," he said in a small, quavering voice. Sally watched in horror as his blue-green eyes filled up with tears. Then he was standing in front of her with his hands in the air in the universal kid-signal for "pick me up." So what could she do? She had to pick him up. He clung to her with his wet face tucked in against her collarbone, the soft elephant clutched tightly in his fist.

"I want my _daddy_," he whispered fiercely into her neck. "My daddy. . ." His voice dissolved into a shuddering sob that shook his entire body.

Sally melted. "Oh sweetheart, I'm so sorry." It was tearing her apart knowing that Sherlock's beloved Daddy was not the saint Sherlock obviously thought he was. She hoped John could find a solution quick or this little boy was about to have his heart broken.


	9. Chapter 9: Jack

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 9: Jack**

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_Maybe John is a little bit angry – What sorcery is this? – Conditions for return_

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John had plenty of time to think on the way to Sherlock's house, because of course there were no cabs to be had in Clapham at nearly two in the morning. This being 1981, even the pubs had long shut and the streets were nearly deserted, with the exception of the odd unsavory character that John tried to avoid surreptitiously.

So he thought about what Sally had said. Was he angry? Ok, yes, he was angry, but who was he angry with? Well, at the moment, he was beyond furious at Garrison Holmes. Sally had been right about that. If he had had a gun in his pocket, he might have pulled it out impulsively, and he knew that you should never point a gun at anyone unless you were prepared to shoot them. So it was better to go in unarmed, because shooting Sherlock's dad was probably the worst thing he could do right now.

Was he angry about anything else? Was he still angry with Mary for lying to him? For not being who he thought she was? Who he _wanted_ her to be? With Sherlock for deceiving him and leaving him behind? He thought he had forgiven them, both of them, but of course he hadn't forgotten, and his trust in both of them was irreparably damaged. It still hurt whenever he thought about it (which admittedly was often), like a tongue probing a sore tooth over and over. It was better to just avoid thinking about it whenever possible.

As soon as he tried to stop thinking about being angry, his thoughts went back to the predicament that they were in, and being stuck here, in the past, and maybe not seeing his wife and daughter again for _years_, and how was he going to support himself, because he couldn't exactly spend the next thirty-five years living in dodgy hotel room with Sally Donovan, could he? Six hundred pounds only went so far, even in 1981.

Several blocks on, John finally came out onto a main thoroughfare with an all-night grocery, and was blessed with a black cab happening by. He was glad to see it, because his internal maps were not nearly as good as Sherlock's and he was afraid he was a bit turned around, especially as some of the roads seemed to be different to what he remembered. And also his fingers and toes were nearly frozen, and he was sick of the thoughts chasing themselves round and round in his head.

He gave the cabbie Sherlock's parents' address. He was fairly sure it was the same house, as Sherlock had warned him before that Christmas visit that his mum might give him a tour of Sherlock's childhood bedroom and nursery (although as it had turned out, she hadn't had the chance before Sherlock had drugged them all and whisked John away).

While the cab moved smoothly along the nearly empty streets, he pulled out his mobile, shielding the screen from the view of the cabbie, and opened the photo he had taken of the hotel room phone. He scribbled down the phone number on a scrap of paper and quickly returned the mobile to his pocket.

John had the cabbie let him out two blocks away from the house and walked the rest of the way, keeping to the shadows with his collar turned up to hide his face. When he was still a half-block away he saw an orangy glow from a lit cigarette near the gate, along with the silhouette of a tall, thin man in the moonlight. The man's back was toward him, so John walked up slowly, careful to be silent on the pavement, until he was right behind him.

"Hello, Garrison," he said quietly.

Garrison Holmes spun around, gasping. "Who are you?" he cried with a backward half-step. The cigarette tumbled from his hand to the gravel walkway.

"I'm the man who's got your son."

"What?! No you don't! You're not—but—" Holmes' voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "How did _you_ get him?"

"I stole him right out from under your _friends'_ noses."

Holmes' eyes darted to the lit kitchen window. "They're not my friends!"

"You know who I mean. A man who smells like cigarette smoke and a woman who wears sharp shoes."

You took him? They—they never told me that."

"I can prove it." With a glance back at the house, John pulled his mobile from his pocket and shielded it with his hand.

Garrison Holmes gasped. When John looked up at him, he could see that he had his hand over his mouth in horror. "Don't worry, I haven't got one of his body parts. I don't want to hurt him." John turned on the phone to the photo of Sherlock and angled it slightly so Holmes could see the screen.

"Oh, God, my baby. What did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything to him. That's what your _friends_ did."

"Is that—is that a camera?" Holmes asked curiously, craning his neck to get a better look at John's mobile.

"What? Oh, yes, a camera—"

"How's it lit up like that? Is the photo inside?"

"Never mind about that." John shoved his phone back into his pocket. "The point is I've got him, and you'll do what I say if you want him back."

"Please don't hurt him. I'll do anything to get him back."

"Why? You were the one who arranged to have him kidnapped in the first place."

"Please—my wife is beside herself. She can't live without him. We're desperate to have him back."

"If you couldn't live without him, why have him kidnapped?"

"They were meant to take Mycroft." Holmes blurted out, then his face took on an expression of panic as he seemed to realize what he had just said.

"What?! Why?"

"He's calmer, more cooperative. He would have just sat quietly and come back unharmed. Sherlock is too emotional and stubborn. I told them, but they didn't listen. Please, I've got to have him back. I can't lose my wife too."

"I'll give him back under one condition."

Holmes breathed a sigh of relief. "Name it, whatever you want. We are prepared to pay. We're working on getting the money. Just give me some time—"

"I don't want money."

"Then what do you want?" Holmes looked bewildered.

"I want you to go to your wife and tell her about your gambling problem."

"Oh God, I can't do that!"

"If you want your son back, you will. And if she loves you like I know she does, she'll pay the debt and help you get free of your addiction."

"Please, don't make me do this. I'll lose my marriage and family. I'll lose everything."

"You have until nine in the morning today."

"Then what will you do?"

"I'll go to her myself and tell her what you did, then you really will lose her."

There were tears standing in Holmes' eyes, but John felt no sympathy for the man. "If you love them, do what's right, Mr Holmes," he said firmly. He took out the slip of paper where he had written down the phone number for the hotel room and shoved it into Holmes' hand. "Have your wife call this number before nine in the morning and you'll get your boy back safe and sound."

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**A/N: See that little button below? That's the review button. Just click there and write me a review. I don't even care what you say. Honestly.**


	10. Chapter 10: Shelley

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 10: Shelly**

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_Not time for breakfast – Yes, you are ticklish. – A knock at the door, reprise. – You've got red on you. – The air is thick._

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Sally woke to something small and cold rhythmically tapping her cheek - Pat pat pat—like dripping water. She opened her eyes to discover Sherlock's little face inches from hers. Damn. STILL not a dream!

"Wake up," his high-pitched voice chirped.

"Oh, God, what time is it," she groaned, catching his hand and pulling it away from her cheek.

"I dunno, I can't tell time," he said with a shrug. "Did a aminal die in your mouth?"

"You little stinker. Your breath don't smell much better." She took hold of his shoulder and moved him to one side so she could see the bedside clock. 04:30, it blinked merrily. "It's not even morning yet. Did Jo -Jack come back?"

"No. I'm hungwy," he announced. His earnest face made it apparent that he expected her to fix that problem.

"It's too early for breakfast."

He frowned, obviously unconvinced. "My tummy doesn't think it's too early."

Sally rolled over onto her back with a moan. This night's sleep was apparently over. If she didn't get up now and get him something to eat, he was just going to keep harassing her until she did. Sherlock Holmes was nothing if not persistent. So what did they have to eat?

"How about leftover fish and chips?"

"Yeah! And there's more jam tarts, too," he reminded her, because of course he remembered the jam tarts.

She set him up at the table, legs swinging, with cold chips doused in ketchup, which he scarfed down like he hadn't eaten in a week, and a piece of fish, which he ignored. Then he managed to pack away three jam tarts and asked for more. When informed that they were all gone, he pouted like she had just stolen them straight out of his mouth.

"Well, I can't help it that you ate them all!" she said while tidying away his abandoned rubbish on the table.

"When can I go home?"

"Well, we'll see when Jack comes back."

"When's he coming back?"

"I dunno. Soon I hope." Oh, she really hoped it would be soon. She wanted to go home just as badly as he did.

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know." She flopped down on the bed, more amused than annoyed by the interrogation. He clambered down from the chair and stood in front of her with his lip and belly both poking out, arms wrapped tightly around the elephant, eyebrows pulled down into a scowl.

"Is he going to fix it? He said he was going to fix it."

"I don't know that either."

"You don't know _anything_!" Sherlock's voice was hard but his lower lip looked suspiciously wobbly. Oh, God, not more waterworks, Sally thought desperately. The previous night it had taken two stories (murder mysteries, natch, pulled from half-remembered case-files), five partly-hummed/mumbled repetitions (at his request: "Sing it again, Shewwy") of Moonshine Lullaby (that her father had claimed was an American lullaby but she suspected he had made up*), and a half-hour of rocking and back-patting (her) and thumb-sucking (him) before he finally stopped sniveling and fell asleep on her. She didn't think she was up for that again. Where the hell was John anyway?

Uh-oh, now the tip of his nose had turned red and his eyes were looking quite shiny and wet. She needed a distraction, quick.

"Oh yeah? I bet I know where you're ticklish."

"I'm not ticklish," he grumbled with a mulish expression. She grabbed his hand, turned it over, and put her fingertip in the middle of his palm.

"Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. . ."

His frown turned into a grin, and then a giggle as she walked her fingertips up his arm. "One step, two step, tickle under there!" When she tickled his armpit, he erupted into laughter. "See, I told you!"

"Maybe I'm a bit ticklish," he admitted.

"Oh? What about under here?" She caught him around the waist, lifted him into the air, and dug her fingers in behind his knee, causing him to shriek with laughter.

"I bet you're ticklish too!" he cried once he had caught his breath, grabbing for her armpit with his greasy, ketchup-stained fingers.

"Oof, you got me!" She fell back onto the bed with him on top of her, then flipped over so he was underneath, still tickling him mercilessly while he screeched and howled.

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Sally, surprised, loosened her grip on Sherlock and he squirmed free.

"Jack is here!" he cried, wriggling off the bed and dashing for the door. Sally sat up, frowning, and pushed her wild hair back off her face. John must have forgotten the key again.

Sherlock was at the door now, reaching up on tiptoes for the lock. Sally's eyes fell on the bedside table, where she remembered John dropping the key when he had come in the previous night. It was empty. No key, which meant John _hadn't_ forgotten it, which meant. . .

"Sherlock, wait!" she cried, but too late. Sherlock's fingers closed around the lock and turned it, and the door immediately slammed open, knocking him backward a step. A large man with a thick neck and a face like an albino gorilla loomed in the doorway. Sherlock backpedaled, but the man's hand shot out and seized him by the arm before he could get away.

Sally lunged for the bedside table, wrenched open the drawer, and grabbed the gun. By the time she had it up and pointed toward the door, the man had picked Sherlock up around the waist and pulled the boy in against his body, Sherlock's back tight against his burly chest. One arm looped under Sherlock's armpits and a meaty hand covered his mouth; the other hand held a gun against his jaw. Sherlock's feet, dangling above the ground, were kicking for all he was worth but could not quite connect with the man's groin.

"Hold still, ya little brat," the gorilla hissed. "Stop kicking me!" But Sherlock only kicked and squirmed harder.

Sally aimed the gun for the gorilla's head, keeping her hands steady and her gaze locked onto her target, and trying not to see Sherlock's enormous, panicked eyes peeking out over the hairy hand.

"Let him go," she demanded.

"Why should I?" the gorilla leered back. Sally adjusted her grip on the weapon. Her hands were sweaty, but she didn't dare break her concentration to wipe them.

Suddenly the man yelped in pain and pulled his hand away from Sherlock's mouth. "Shit!" he shouted. And then Sherlock was sprinting toward Sally, who grabbed him one-handed and tucked him behind her leg, still holding the gun on the man with her other hand.

"Little fucker bit me!" the gorilla growled. He had his gun aimed at Sally now, and he was holding it properly, although one-handed, with his arm extended and his finger resting lightly on the trigger. His feet were planted and his other hand, clenched into a fist, was held tightly against his chest in a fighter stance. This was a man who knew how to handle a pistol. Sally doubted she could outshoot him, especially with a quivering little boy clinging to her trouser leg.

She reached back to comfort Sherlock, and felt his sweaty little hand slide into hers. "It's the man with the dog," he whispered in a shaky voice. What? Oh, the man with the dog. That the woman wasn't fucking. Right. Was this knowledge something she could use against him?

Before she could decide on the right course of action, the door, which had been half-closed behind the man, suddenly banged open and hit him in the back, knocking him off-balance. And then a compact form flew through the doorway and tackled the man to the ground. The gun skittered away across the floor. _John_! Sally didn't think she had ever been happier to see anyone than at that moment.

The gorilla staggered to his feet and the two men grappled for a moment. The gorilla outweighed John by at least five stones, but John evidently had a better understanding of physics, so it was a fairly even match as far as Sally could see. Although, she considered, it would have been easier for her if John had simply collapsed on the floor and let the gorilla pin him. Then she could shoot the guy in the head and be done with it. As it was, she was reduced to trying to hold the gun steady and keeping her finger off the trigger so she didn't accidentally shoot the wrong man.

Another twist, a blur of tangled arms and legs, and her eye caught a flash of silver in the gorilla's hand.

"Knife!" she cried, just as the blade arced downward, slipping past John's arm and carving a slice across his exposed belly and side. A line of bright crimson bloomed on his shirt, and while John's attention was momentarily diverted, the gorilla took advantage of the distraction to knock his legs out from under him. Both landed on the floor with a thud. John managed to block the knife that was coming down at his face, but got his arm bloodied in the process.

Now that the two men were in a somewhat stable position, Sally thought she might be able to take a shot without risking killing John by accident. Just aim and breathe. Her left hand was still holding onto Sherlock's, so she was aiming one-handed. And it didn't help that her breathing was shaky and her hand was sweaty and slippery.

Just as she lined up the shot and slipped her finger onto the trigger, she felt Sherlock's small hand slide out of hers, and then he was darting across the floor toward the two men as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"Sherlock!" she cried. She hastily removed her finger from the trigger and held the gun up. SHIT! "Get back here!"

But he ignored her, and instead grabbed for the gorilla's arm, tugging with all his might in a vain attempt to pull him off John. His puny grasp did nothing but annoy the man, who shook his arm to try to dislodge him.

When that didn't work, the man swung his arm back in a quick motion, and just as quickly, Sherlock fell backward and landed on his arse on the floor with a thump. Good, thought Sally. He was out of the way. Now just aim and breathe. . .

While she was aiming, her eye was distracted by _what the hell was all that red on Sherlock's pyjama top? And why wasn't he getting up?_ "Oh shit," she whispered. Oh shit oh shit.

A large patch of blood was spreading out over his pyjama top, obscuring the sun and planets, far too much of it for his little body. He couldn't have that much to spare, could he? "Sherlock! Oh God no!"

Donovan's cry attracted the attention of the two men grappling on the floor. The gorilla's head swiveled toward Sherlock and his eyes widened. In a jerky motion he scrambled up off of John and fled.

John jumped up, breathing hard, dripping blood from his stomach and wrist, and looked back and forth between the boy on the floor and the doorway.

"Let him go!" Donovan urged. "Help Sherlock!"

"Right," John said briskly. "Right. Of course." He dropped to his knees next to the little boy, who was squirming on the floor amidst a growing pool of red. "Sherlock? Sherlock, hold still for me, mate."

"My stomach hurts," Sherlock gasped, big frightened eyes locked on John's face.

"It's all right, mate. Just hold still and let me see." John started trying to undo the snaps on the pyjamas, but almost immediately gave up and just stuck his fingers in the tear made by the knife and ripped the fabric open. Sherlock's hands came up to protect the wound from John's probing fingers.

"Gotta move your hands, love," John said, pushing Sherlock's arm down. "Sa—Shelley, can you help me here?"

Sally, who had been hanging back not knowing what she could do to help, dropped to her knees beside John and gently held Sherlock's flailing arms down, contorting her body to stay out of John's way. A sea of crimson coated Sherlock's bare belly, the ruined pyjama top, John's hands, and the floor. So much blood. . .

While Sally watched John work, she felt Sherlock's arms relax under her hands, and when she looked up at his face, she saw that his eyes had slid almost closed and his face had gone slack. "Sherlock!" she called. "Sherlock, wake up! John, he's lost consciousness."

"Hypovolemic shock," John said grimly. "Looks like the knife nicked at least one of his organs, probably the liver from the trajectory of the wound."

"He can't die, can he?" Sally said in a panic. "I mean, we know him, right? He can't die now."

"We don't know what's going to happen," John replied, with his hands pressed to Sherlock's belly. "We've already changed things. We don't know what's going to happen now. We need to get him to hosp—what is that _noise_?!"

Sally heard, over Sherlock's raspy breathing, a buzzing—two short rings, pause, two more short rings. An old-fashioned phone, like her grandmother used to have in her kitchen. The ancient rotary-dial phone on the bedside table was ringing.

"I gave Sherlock's dad this number," John said, so Sally ran to the phone and scooped up the receiver, leaving a smear of blood behind.

"Hello," she said breathlessly.

"Oh—er—hello," came a woman's startled voice. "This is Violet Holmes. You have my son."

"Oh, thank God! It's Mrs Holmes," she relayed to John.

"Ask her if her husband told her the whole truth," John demanded.

"What did your husband tell you?"

"He's come clean with the whole sordid tale," Mrs Holmes said shakily. "I want my son back."

"Yes! Oh, God yes. But he's hurt!"

"If you've hurt him—"

"No, it wasn't us! One of the men who—he said it was the man with the dog. Your husband should know," Sally was talking too quickly, she knew, but there was no time to explain properly. "Please, we've got to get him to hospital."

"Where?"

Sally looked to John, "Where?" she repeated frantically.

"Lambeth Hospital. It's the nearest. They haven't got an A&amp;E, but they'll help us."

"Lambeth Hospital," she repeated into the phone. "It's in Clapham. Do you know it?"

"We'll find it. Thank you!"

Sally dropped the phone without ringing off and turned back to John, who had scooped little Sherlock up with one arm under his knees and the other under his shoulders. Sherlock's eyes were still closed but his face was screwed up in pain.

"It's all right, Sherlock," she reassured him. "Mummy and Daddy will meet us at hospital." She wasn't sure he understood as his expression didn't change, but his eyes opened to slits and locked on hers for a second. Then John was out the door with him, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind. Sally quickly grabbed their belongings: her phone and taser, John's gun, and for some reason the little soft elephant, and scrambled to follow before they got out of sight.

On the way out the door, she heard the proprietor's voice calling after them, "What's all the fuss?" but she just tossed a quick "Sorry!" over her shoulder and kept running after John, who had stopped on the pavement with his head swiveling both ways looking for a cab.

Sally had no idea what time it was, but the sky was just starting to get light around the edges. There was almost no traffic on the street, and certainly no cabs. None of the shops were open yet. After a moment, John apparently gave up on a cab and started to run east down the street. There was a tube stop just a block away, but Sally didn't see how they could get onto the tube carrying a child covered in blood without attracting unwanted attention.

John kept running past the entrance to the tube station, with Sherlock jostling in his arms, and Sally pounded down the pavement after him. She could see the top of Sherlock's head peeking around John's shoulder, his half-open eyes gazing back at her. His hand, still dripping blood, reached out for her, but she couldn't quite catch up. Don't die don't die don't die. . . she repeated in her head as she ran, out of breath but still moving. Details around her were getting fuzzy from the lack of oxygen.

Another block, then another, and then, just when her lungs were bursting and her throat felt like it was about to catch fire, she spotted a welcome sight of a blue and white hospital sign up ahead. Another half a block on the hospital itself came into view, more of a clinic than a proper hospital, but the lights were on so maybe it was open.

Sally could make out, through her clouded vision, that two people were standing out front, apparently waiting. When they got closer, the people started running toward them, the shorter one with her hand over her mouth. The taller one met John halfway to the door. Sally got a glimpse of sandy brown hair and prominent cheekbones in a drawn face—this must be Sherlock's dad. John shoved Sherlock into his arms and stepped back, breathing hard.

"My daddy," Sherlock whispered. His skinny arms went around his father's neck, his face pressed in against his angular shoulder. "It hurts, Daddy."

"I'm sorry, son. I'm so sorry," his father said, voice breaking. Sally felt tears spring to her eyes, blurring the image. She squinted at the two of them but couldn't quite get them to come into focus. Rubbing her eyes didn't help, either.

Through the spots and sparkles she watched Sherlock's daddy run through the double doors, with his wife at his elbow, and got a fuzzy impression of them being surrounded by vague figures in white coats. Doctors. They would save him, right? So much blood from such a little body, but the doctors could put him back together, couldn't they?

She felt John pulling at her arm. At least, she thought it was John. She couldn't quite see him, as her vision had gone white around the edges, with a worrying blank spot in the middle.

"Sally, we've got to go," came John's voice. It sounded far away, even though she knew he must have been standing just behind her. The door seemed to have gotten farther away too, and the lights had faded. It had been dawn a moment ago, but the sun's light had dimmed. Confusing, but maybe it was just the streetlights going off. John was pulling too hard on her arm, nearly yanking her off her feet. Or did he have an arm around her waist? She really didn't think it necessary to pull so hard.

Really, what was wrong with the air? Why was it suddenly so thick? She felt the soft elephant fall from her nerveless fingers as everything around her turned to gray.

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*No, Sally's dad didn't make up "Moonshine Lullaby." It's from the musical Annie Get Your Gun.

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**A/N: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I love to hear what you think!**


	11. Part the Second: John

**A/N: Did you notice this story has a T rating? It will now start to earn that rating. Nothing graphic, but I'd hate to think kindergarteners were reading this story!**

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**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Part the second: John**

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_Green stripes. – Bye bye, Clair de Lune. – Who did I call? – Impossible vs improbable. – My baby_

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John woke up in bed. His own bed this time, not a lumpy hotel room mattress. He opened his eyes to the familiar surroundings, and then immediately closed them again. A dream. It was a dream. Thank God for that.

It was very quiet in his flat, although he had seen with that quick glance that the sun was slanting in through the windows, so it must be morning. No smell of coffee, no noises from the kitchen, so Mary must not be up yet, even though she was usually out of bed before sunrise.

He opened his eyes again and looked around the room. No Mary in the bed. The bathroom door was open and there were no noises coming from within, so she wasn't there either. Had she gone in to work early and let him have a lie-in?

He blinked his eyes to clear them and noticed that the sheets were looking very green today. Still striped, but usually they looked more blue. Strange trick of the eye, he supposed. Mary always said he was hopeless at colours.

Further inspection revealed that Mary's lamp was gone from her bedside table. In fact, he realized as he sat up, the entire table was gone, as was Mary's pillow. That was very strange indeed. Had she cleaned house somehow while he slept?

He swiveled his head to check the rest of the room, only to discover that Mary's bureau was also gone. How on earth could she have removed her entire bureau while he was sleeping right in the same room? And wouldn't it have left an indentation in the carpet? The carpet was uniformly dusty and unmarked. That wasn't right.

With a growing knot in his stomach, he tossed back the covers, jumped out of bed and opened the closet. Only his own clothes hung from the bar. Well, some of them were on hangers. The rest were crumpled up at the bottom of the closet, something he almost never did.

He did a quick check of the bathroom and found nothing of Mary's. Her bottle of Clair de Lune perfume was gone off the counter, her shampoo was missing from the bath. No hairbrush filled with blond hairs. No red toothbrush in the cup with his.

This was bad. Something was wrong. Was he still asleep? Had it really been a dream? How would he know? Sally! Sally Donovan would know.

He dashed back to his bedside table and picked up his phone. With shaky fingers, he swiped through until he found her number and dialed it. While it was ringing, he suddenly felt silly. Of course it had been a dream. It must have been. Mary must have just done some tidying up. But he couldn't just hang up. Sally would wonder why he had called her early in the morning, right? And what could he tell her? What would he say when she answered? And if it hadn't been a dream, did that mean Sherlock was. . . dead?

There was a click on the line as the call connected, then a man's voice answered. "Hello?" Deep baritone, grumpy half-awake tone. Very familiar.

"Sherlock? Is that you?"

"Yes," the man grumbled. "It's six a.m., John."

"It's you," John repeated, a bit dazed.

"Yes, we've already established that. What do you want at this ungodly hour?"

"I'm sorry—" (although he wasn't. Sherlock wasn't dead!) "I—I thought I dialed Sally's number." It must have been a dream after all. Good. Excellent. Sherlock was alive, Mary must be out shopping, and—

"Oh." Sherlock said flatly. "Here." There was a pause, and then John could hear Sherlock's muffled voice say, "Sally, wake up. Wake up, it's John calling for you."

What? Just—what? Oh, this wasn't good.

There was a sleepy groan, some rustling sounds, then Sally's voice came on the line. "Hi. . . John."

"Hi, Sally."

A long pause stretched out for several seconds.

"Sally?"

"Uh. . . yeah, John? What's up?"

"Do you remember. . ."

"Yeah, I know, um. . ." another long pause, then Sally's voice changed. "Ok, I can talk now, he walked out. What the hell?!" she said in a breathless whisper. "I was in bed with Sherlock! I think I'm at Baker Street. John! John, he was _naked_!"

Another pause, wherein John dropped onto his bed and tried to breathe.

"Oh, God, so am I!" Sally exclaimed, startling him. Just breathe. In. out. In again. That shouldn't be so hard, right? Some muffled sounds came down the line, a muttered curse, a thump. "Found some pyjama bottoms, but I can't find my shirt," she whispered. "Oh, God, where is my shirt?" More scuffling sounds. "Ok, found one, but it's miles too big. I think it's Sherlock's. I hope I can get out of here without him seeing me."

John finally found his voice. "Sally, what the hell?"

"I have no idea! Last I remember we were running down the pavement with Sherlock bleeding out in your arms, and then I woke up here. With _him_!"

"So it wasn't a dream?" John clarified.

"Not unless we somehow both had the same dream!"

"Suppose not. All Mary's things are gone."

"What? Oh, John! Do you suppose we could have changed history?"

"Well, Sherlock's not dead, so that's the same. We couldn't have changed much."

"Obviously some things changed. Maybe you never even married her."

The knot in John's stomach tightened. Never married Mary? That would mean no Lucy. The thought was too horrible to contemplate, so he pushed it away.

"John, I'm in the bathroom now, and all of my things are here. My shampoo, my lotion, my hair products—I think I _live_ here, John!" Her horrified voice had gone up an octave. "How could I live with Sherlock? Oh, this is bad. . ."

"You think you've got it bad? I've lost my entire family!"

"You don't know that for certain. Maybe Mary just isn't there right now."

"But all of her things-!"

"I don't know, John. I'm going to try to sneak out. Just hold the line. I'll talk to you in a minute." There was silence for a moment except for the sound of Sally's harsh breathing, and then he heard a loud, rubbery squeak. "Shit!" she whispered hoarsely.

"What was that?"

"I stepped on a rubber duckie. I guess we must have a dog—?"

Another pause that stretched out several seconds. Nothing. Not even breathing now.

"Sally?" John finally prompted.

"I'm going to have to call you back," Sally said abruptly, and then the line went dead.

"Sally? Sally!" John heard a double-beep in his ear, and pulled back the phone to verify that the call had indeed ended. What the hell? Why had she hung up on him?

John sat for a full minute just staring at the phone, trying to process this. The facts as he knew them included:

1\. Last night, despite its improbability, had not been a dream (hadn't Sherlock once said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."? He would have thought time travel _impossible_, but apparently it was merely _improbable_.)

2\. Nothing of Mary's remained in the flat. To all appearances she did not live there. He had no idea if she had _ever_ lived there. The only conclusion he could draw was that he was not married to her, and maybe never had been. He couldn't have a child with a woman he had no relationship with, so. . . no, don't go there.

3\. Sally had spent at least one night with Sherlock, and probably more, since her things were stored in the bathroom.

4\. He had a headache, which was becoming worse by the moment. Paracetemol and a cup of tea might help with that.

John made his legs unfold and carry him up, off the bed and down the hall toward the kitchen. On the way, he came to the closed door of Lucy's bedroom. Was it still Lucy's bedroom? Did his baby girl still exist? Was he ready to face the possibility that she was gone forever because of his stupid impulsive need to be a hero?

He clenched and unclenched his fist to stop the tremor that threatened to return. Nodding sharply, he reached out and turned the doorknob. As the door inched open, he spotted pale yellow walls, then a teddy lying facedown on the floor. He opened the door wider and saw the cot in the corner of the room.

His daughter stood clutching the rail. As soon as she caught sight of him, she started bouncing up and down and her mouth opened in a slobbery grin. "Dada!"

John stood frozen in the doorway as relieved tears sprung to his eyes. Lucy. Oh, Lucy! His _baby_.

"Dada!" Lucy cried again, and followed it up by flinging her stuffed giraffe out of the cot, then leaning over to watch where it landed. The familiar action broke the spell, and John rushed over, scooped her up out of the cot, and buried his face in her golden curls.

"My baby," he whispered into her ear. "My baby. . ."

For a long moment, he just held her tightly until she began to squirm against him.

"Num num!" she screeched, pointing toward the door. "Num num!"

"Oh, right. Breakfast time," John said with a relieved grin that refused to fade despite the fact that his ears were now ringing. "Yes, num num."

As he carried her toward the kitchen, his phone chirped in his pocket. Would this be Sally, texting to apologize for hanging up on him? Had she managed to get out of 221B without Sherlock catching her?

One-handed he wrestled the phone out of the pocket of his pyjama bottoms and glanced at the screen. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.

"Num num!" Lucy shrieked again, trying to pull him toward the door.

"Just a moment, love. . ." he replied distractedly, staring at the screen.

**Text from: Mary**

_I'll be there at 8:30 to pick up Lucy for my visit. Pls have her ready this time._

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**A/N: My sincere (ok, not-so-sincere) apologies for not putting a more specific warning on this chapter. I didn't want to spoil the surprise. Please leave me a review!**


	12. Chapter 12: Sally

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 12: Sally**

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_Sally is rubbish at sneaking. – chip off the old block – Sherlock hates to share. – Navigatio plays fast and loose with the layout of 221B – That's what he meant by sharing – Texting a ghost – Sally falls in love._

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Sally tiptoed down the hallway toward the kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, hoping against hope she could somehow get past Sherlock and out the door without him noticing. It would be quite a trick, knowing his powers of observation.

"I'm going to try to sneak out. Just hold the line," she whispered to John. "I'll talk to you in a minute."

She took another careful step, neck craned to peek around the corner into the kitchen, when her foot hit something squishy, something that gave off a loud squeak.

"Shit!" Sally looked down and discovered a yellow rubber duckie under her foot. It looked well-loved (aka dingy, faded, and slimy).

"What was that?" John's voice said in her ear.

"I stepped on a rubber duckie. I guess we must have a dog—?"

No point in being quiet now, because there was no way Sherlock could have missed that. Straightening up, Sally stepped into the kitchen—and stopped dead. Sherlock was sitting at the table, shirtless, with his back to her, and in front of him was a high chair containing a baby. A _baby_, with bright green eyes and a head full of downy black curls.

A baby.

Sally stood there staring gormlessly at them for a moment. Sherlock half-turned to look over his shoulder at her, and she spotted a glass jar of baby food and a spoon in his hands. _They had a baby and Sherlock was feeding it._

"Sally?" came John's concerned voice.

"I'm going to have to call you back," she said abruptly. Her hands moved automatically to disconnect the call, even though she could hear John calling, "Sally? Sally!" on the other end.

"What did John say?" Sherlock asked, turning back to offer the shirtless baby another bite. Sally didn't even know if it was a girl or a boy. She had a baby and she didn't know if it was a girl or a boy. She almost burst into hysterical laughter at the ridiculousness (ridiculosity?) of it all.

Sherlock turned and raised his eyebrows at her. Oh, right, he had asked her a question. "Um. . . nothing much." She trailed off, eyes on the pinkish scar that ran horizontally across his right cheekbone. She was sure that hadn't been there. . . before.

"Did he say if he was coming today?" Sherlock was biting the inside of his lip. Odd. She had never seen him do that before.

She blinked at him. "Coming where?"

"To the autopsy at 11 at Barts. I thought maybe. . ." Sherlock's shoulders dropped a fraction. "Evidently not."

"Why don't you. . .call him? Or text him?"

Sherlock's only response was a slight quirk of the lips as he turned back to the baby and held out the spoon, which was soundly rejected with a smack of tiny hands. There was a scar on the back of Sherlock's right shoulder, she noticed peripherally, just above his protruding scapula. It was roughly circular, about as big as twenty pence piece, but puckered and ragged around the edges. Bullet wound? Having never seen him shirtless before, she didn't know if that was new or not.

"What time's your shift today? Mrs Hudson wanted to know what time she needed to babysit."

"I—I don't know," Sally said vaguely, gaze locked back on the baby. His (she was fairly sure it was a boy, although she couldn't have said how she knew) eyes were the same shape as Sherlock's, and his lips were an adorable little cupid's bow. The only nod to her genes was a slightly darker skin tone, more cafe-au-lait than straight cream like Sherlock's skin.

"Are you all right?"

Oh, Sherlock was looking at her again, eyes narrowed. Calculating. She was sure the next comment out of his mouth was going to be a biting deduction about where she had spent last night. Except this time, apparently, she had spent it with _him_.

When he said nothing, she mumbled, "Well, actually, I'm not feeling too well. I think I might. . . stay home today."

"Ah." Sherlock turned back to the baby and waved the spoon at him again, only to have him smack his fat little hands on the tray and blow a raspberry in response. "Did you have a nightmare last night?"

"What? Oh, um—not that I can recall."

"You were saying, 'Don't die, don't die."

"I'm—I'm not sure."

"Well, if you're staying home, I'll let Greg know, since I'm working with him anyway."

". . . All right." Greg? Since when did Sherlock call Lestrade 'Greg'?

"And don't forget to call Nikola."

Sally stopped breathing. "Nikola?" she said weakly.

"Yes, your partner, remember? You must really be feeling ill." Sherlock waved another spoonful at the baby but was again rejected. "Come on, Phinney, eat your peaches. What's wrong with the peaches?"

The baby blew another raspberry and smacked his hands again. Phinney? Short for Phineas? Sally really did feel sick now.

"Now you see Mummy, you don't want Daddy anymore," Sherlock said ruefully, returning the spoon to the jar. "I don't blame you."

"I can. . . take over."

"Yeah, good." Sherlock stood and handed her the jar, which she took automatically. When their hands touched, it felt like an electric shock to her, although he didn't react. Then her attention was distracted by the ring on his third finger. Wedding ring? She glanced down at her own left hand and noticed for the first time that she had a ring on too. They were _married_?!

"I've got to get ready for work anyway," he said, trying to catch her eye, so she looked up and put on a hopefully convincing smile. Work? Sherlock Holmes had to get ready for work? Sherlock Holmes, who saw clients in his pyjamas and wore nothing but a sheet to Buckingham Palace, had to get ready for _work_?

"I should be home before seven," he was saying, although Sally was having trouble keeping focus. "Do you want me to bring takeway?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure." She saw that he had yet another scar on the front of his shoulder, just below his clavicle—also roughly circular and puckered, but about twice the size of the one on his back. This could be an exit wound. When did that happen? The scar looked fairly old, no longer pinkish around the edges like the one on his face.

"Anything from the shops?"

Sherlock Holmes was offering to do the shopping? Who _was_ this man? "I—I don't know." Her eyes slid down to his stomach, where she spotted a thin line, about six centimeters long, obviously very old and faded, running diagonally under his ribcage. Her vision was suddenly flooded with an image of a little boy with a ripped pyjama shirt covered in crimson, John's bloody hands pressed to his belly. . .

"Well, text me if you think of something," he said, and headed off down the hall toward the bathroom, leaving her alone with the baby. Phinney. Phineas. Her son, who she did not know at all. How old was he? Where was he born? What did he like to eat? HOW WAS IT POSSIBLE HE EVEN EXISTED AT ALL?!

Sally sat down slowly in the chair and just stared at him. God, he looked just like Sherlock! A little round face, odd leonine eyes, fluffy dark curls. After a moment, the baby flashed her a dimpled, open-mouthed grin, complete with two tiny teeth set like pearls in the bottom gums.

"Hello, Phineas, I'm your mummy," she said softly. Her voice cracked in disbelief, so she cleared her throat and said it again. "I'm your mummy." Once again her voice turned to a squeak at the end. The words didn't quite want to come out of her mouth.

"Mummummummum!" the baby squealed, clapping his hands in excitement.

"Yes, that's right. I'm. . . mummy. And you're. . . Phineas. Phinney. Oh my God. . ." she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from squeaking again.

The baby was waving his hands about now while opening and closing his mouth. Oh yes, the peaches! He must want more.

She scooped up a spoonful of peaches and held it out toward his mouth, but he turned his head at the last minute and it smeared orange all over his cheek instead.

"Shi—oops," she said, as he rubbed at his face, which spread the peaches over his nose and into his ear. "Oh dear. No—no, don't spread it around. Um. . ." She glanced around and saw a flannel hanging over the side of the sink. Grabbing it, she wiped him down as best she could, but there were still traces of orange along his jaw and hairline.

After several more tries to get him to accept a bite of peaches, each soundly rejected, she finally gave up. He was clearly DONE, or maybe there was some trick to it that she wasn't aware of. The flannel was covered in mashed peaches, so she went to the sink to rinse it out.

With the water on, and distracted by her whirling thoughts (Nikola was alive! She had a baby! She was married to Sherlock? What the hell?!), she didn't hear Sherlock come up behind her until she felt his hand pushing back her hair, then his lips pressed to the side of her neck. Oh, God, he was touching her! After the initial shock, she tried to relax her tense muscles. This version of her should be used to being touched by Sherlock; it wouldn't do to freak out and push him away now.

"That was good last night," he whispered in her ear. "We should do that again soon." And then his other hand was sliding up under the loose t-shirt to cup her breast. She couldn't help but jump and yelp, which she covered with a giggle. Sherlock Holmes had his hand on her breast! Run away! Run away!

"Ha ha, um, yeah. . ."

"Everything all right? You seem tense."

"Yes, you just startled me, is all. Everything's fine. Just fine."

There was a short pause. She didn't make eye contact, but she was sure he was observing her. Deducing. What did he see?

Finally he said simply, "Good." He gave her breast a little squeeze. "Oh, how I hate sharing these." With another kiss, he slipped away, leaving a cold space at her back—wait, what did he mean by "sharing these"?

She turned around to find that he was already at the door with his back to her. When he pulled his coat off the hook and turned, she saw a badge clipped to his belt. An actual official badge? That belonged to him, not nicked from Lestrade?

A bit dazed still, she managed to get out, "Do you want breakfast?"

He just held up his coffee cup, said "There's more in the pot," and slipped out the door. As soon as it clicked shut behind him, Sally sagged against the sink. Her mind and body couldn't handle all of these surprises that kept coming at her from every angle.

John! She had to call John back! She snatched up her phone from where she had dropped it on the table and searched for his number with shaking fingers. The baby was sucking on his fist now, which evidently was tastier than mashed peaches, so she left him to it. He couldn't get into any trouble as long as he was contained in the high chair, right?

Sally opened her contacts and found John's name, on the favourites page, although she knew she had never added him to that page. Just below **Watson, John**, was another name she didn't remember adding, **Watson, Mary**. Sally didn't even think she had had Mary's number previously.

John picked up on the first ring, and Sally didn't even give him a chance to say hello before she launched in. "John, John! I think I'm married to Sherlock!" _Married to Sherlock_—the thought was so unexpected that she almost felt like throwing up, not from disgust, exactly. It was just so. . . _different_. "And we have a baby! A baby, John!"

There was silence on the other end of the line for a second, then John said hesitantly, "A—a baby?"

"Yes!" Sally whirled around to inspect the baby, who was blowing raspberries on his chubby fist. "He's about nine months old, I guess. His name is Phineas, like my dad! Sherlock called him Phinney—that's what my dad used to be called. John, he looks just like Sherlock! He's got dark curls, and green eyes, and cute little dimples. Oh, God, I can't believe I have a BABY!"

Sally suddenly realized that she was babbling, and also that John hadn't said anything else.

"John? What about you? Lucy! Is Lucy there?"

"Yes, she's here."

"Oh, that's good. And Nikola! Nikola is still alive!"

"She is?"

"Yes, Sherlock told me I should call her if I was staying home sick today. She's alive, John! I can't believe it!"

The baby started to fuss and smack his hands on the high chair tray. When Sally didn't respond right away, his volume increased to a wail.

"Oh—oh, hey. It's all right, little man," she attempted to reassure him, but he only flailed harder and screeched, face turning red.

"That's him? Your. . . baby?" John asked.

"Yes. He's not happy in the high chair. Just a second." She tucked the phone under her chin and fumbled about, trying to remove the tray one handed, while he kicked and cried. By the time she got the tray off, she realized that the front of her shirt was wet and her breasts felt. . . _weird_ was the only way to describe it.

As soon as she had man-handled the baby out of the high chair, he grabbed for the front of her shirt, lips smacking. Oh no. . .

"John, I think I'm breastfeeding this baby!"

John had the audacity to laugh.

"Shut up! I don't know how to breastfeed a baby!"

"All right, all right," John said with a snort. "I'm sorry. Nine months, you said? He'll know what to do. Just put him close to your breast and he'll do the rest. That's what. . . That's what Mary used to do."

"Should I sit down first?"

"Yes, and put a pillow under your elbow if you ever want to be able to use your arm again."

"All right. Hold on." Sally put the phone down and sat carefully on the sofa with the baby in her arms. Almost immediately he flipped over onto his side and started rooting around in her t-shirt. "Be patient," she chided him while she arranged her clothing. As soon as she was set, he latched on straight away and began to suckle. Oh, that felt so odd!

She picked up the phone again one-handed. "This feels weird!"

"Does it hurt?"

"Not exactly . . ."

"Then you're probably doing it right. Just try to relax."

"All right, I'm trying. What about Mary? Do you know where she is? I mean, you must have been married to her, right? Or at least had a relationship if Lucy's there."

"She doesn't live here, I know that. She texted me that she'd be here at 8:30 to get Lucy for a visitation. I wish I knew what happened."

"Did you ever have any. . . trouble? Like a time you thought you might get divorced? Maybe in this—timeline? Dimension? I don't know what to call it—you went through with it."

"Well, after Mary shot Sherlock, we almost—"

"Mary shot Sherlock? When he got shot, that was _her_?!"

"Oh, right, you didn't know that. Never mind."

"Oh no you don't! I need to know! I am married to the man, after all. Oh my God, what the hell?!"

"Yeah, that's bizarre. Anyway, we nearly broke up over that, and. . . other things."

"But John, Sherlock got shot in the chest, right? He doesn't have a bullet scar in the middle of his chest."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He's got one in his shoulder, though. Through and through, looks like a large caliber."

"Maybe Mary shot him in the shoulder in this. . . reality."

"Maybe. Oh, John, he offered to get takeaway and do the shopping! I think we've accidentally domesticated him!"

"We've got to fix this!"

"How?! Can we go back to the Wizard's house and find that. . . time machine or whatever it is?" Sally said desperately.

"Even if we could, how would we fix this? Find ourselves and tell us not to rescue him? And the man's a serial killer. We can't exactly pop round for tea."

"There must be something we can do!"

"I don't know; I just want my wife back!"

"Oh, John, I think I know her. She's listed under my favorites in my contacts, right under you. I think we must be friends."

"Have you ever met her?"

"Once, I think. She stopped by to pick you up at the Yard once. I didn't even say hello to her."

"Well, at least one of us still has a relationship with her," John said glumly. Sally could hear his daughter babbling in the background.

"Maybe I can help. I could try to talk to her about it."

"I don't know if that would help."

"Well, it's worth a try. Oh! Sherlock said you're supposed to meet him at St Bart's morgue this morning."

"I am?"

"Yeah, at 11 for an autopsy. I don't know anything more, sorry."

"Maybe he texted me about it. I'll have to look back."

Sally remembered the look on Sherlock's face when she suggested he text John, and it suddenly made her wonder if something was going on there as well.

"Possibly not. Anyway, he left already."

"Ok, I'll just go to the morgue then. Maybe I'll get there early and see if I can get some info from Molly. Let's talk later, yeah?"

"Yeah, all right, bye."

Before she set down the phone, she thumbed back over to her favourites and sat staring at the second entry, right under Sherlock. **Kim, Nikola**, it declared, like it was the most normal thing in the world to have your dead best friend suddenly reappear.

She really should text her to let her know she wasn't coming in. It was the right thing to do. Nikola would be expecting her to show up. She composed a brief text (**Sick today, staying home**), but somehow she couldn't bring herself to send it. Somehow it felt like, if she texted Nikola and she didn't answer, it would prove that this wasn't real. It certainly _felt_ real. The baby in her arms definitely felt real. Did she want it to be real? She wasn't sure at the moment.

Speaking of the baby, he was starting to squirm and turn red in the face. He was sucking harder now, which sort of hurt. What was wrong with him? She tried to pull him off, but OUCH! Too much suction, and she could feel those cute little pearly teeth biting into her sensitive skin.

"Ow! Let go, you little vampire!"

Finally he broke the suction himself and started to wail, little hands opening and closing. She realized that the breast he had been on was much flatter now, while the other was still rock-hard. Oh, it was _empty_! She didn't even know that was a thing that could happen.

Tossing her phone onto the coffee table with the text unsent, she awkwardly switched him over to the other side, where he immediately latched on and started sucking like mad again. How much did this kid eat? Yet another question about him that she did not know the answer to. There was so much she didn't know about what her life had turned into.

Sally sat staring at the baby, sizing him up. HOW had this happened? She remembered that she had made an awkward pass at Sherlock when they first met, before she knew what he was like, and he had said something cutting and turned her down flat. Her cheeks still burned just thinking about it. So what made it different this time? She had no idea.

What would it be like to have sex with Sherlock, she wondered. Would he be like a robot? Could he even have real feelings for someone—for her?

And then suddenly, she didn't have to wonder, because she _remembered_. Silky sheets, her hands in his hair. Kissing him. The way he moved. The things he could do with his tongue. . .Oh, good lord. . .If she had sex with him now, would it be under false pretenses? He knew her as his loving wife, when really she was a bitter bitch who hated him.

She had a memory, still like a snapshot, of touching his scars too, kissing the one on his shoulder particularly. Why would she do that? Where did he get that scar, if not from Mary?

Suddenly she realized that her arm was aching from holding one position too long, but the baby showed no sign of being finished: eyes closed, long dark lashes against his cheek, hands tightly fisted, still sucking away like it was his job. Could she do this? This baby was completely dependent on her, who could never even remember to buy milk at the store. Her schedule was unpredictable, her job dangerous and demanding, and her fridge full of rotting takeaway (well, it had been. Probably full of body parts now, knowing Sherlock). What were the chances that a baby could even survive a week in their combined care? Presumably she had kept him alive so far, but she had no idea how.

While she was thinking this, the baby's little dimpled hand reached up and wrapped around a lock of her hair, and whoa—bam!—just like that, Sally Donovan was in love.

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**A/N: So did you see how I changed the layout of 221B? Remember, reviews are like angel kisses.**


	13. Chapter 13: John

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 13: John**

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_Not quite ready – John can't outfit – A letter from another dimension – John learns nothing new_

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By 8:15, John was only half-way through feeding Lucy (who was covered in cereal and mashed pears) when his phone chimed with a text from Mary.

_On my way. Be there in 15 minutes._

Shit. Mary had said "have her ready this time," which probably meant she should at least have a fresh nappy on, not one that was still soaked from overnight. His attempts to get her ready were taking a frustratingly long time without Mary's capable assistance. Usually she took the lead on breakfast and bath while John "helped", and now he was realizing how much he depended on her organization skills to keep things moving. He had no idea where anything was in his own house! It had taken him almost ten minutes just to find a spoon, to the point where he thought about taking Lucy out of the high chair and watching to see if she could lead him to it.

He hurried Lucy through the last few bites of her breakfast, then quickly wiped her down with a flannel. She wasn't exactly up to Mary's usual standards of cleanliness, but at least the food residue blended in somewhat with her skin so it wasn't too obvious.

Finding a fresh nappy proved to be a challenge as well, but once he finally put Lucy down she toddled to the closet on her own and came back waving one in her fat little fist.

"Ta, love," John said with a grin. Fortunately his daughter took after her mother. She was too clever by half.

The thought of Mary made his stomach twist. For some reason she had left them. Had left _him_. Why? What had he done to botch up his marriage?

John could feel his hand clenching and unclenching again, so he shook it out and looked at it. There was no tremor, but he could feel the muscles, wound tight like violin strings. It was there, just under the surface, ready to return at any time.

Lucy interrupted his thoughts by jumping up in the middle of her nappy change (fortunately on the floor). He had gone still too long and she apparently took that as her cue that it was time to dance, bare-bummed, all around her bedroom.

"Come back here, you little scamp!" he cried as she pranced away giggling.

He had just caught her and was in the middle of applying a raspberry to her tummy when he heard the front door open. Mary! She was home!

He dashed out into the hallway with his half-naked daughter in his arms, grinning in anticipation, to find Mary standing just inside the front door surveying the wreckage of their sitting room with an expression of distaste.

"Mary!"

"Hello, John. I see she isn't ready."

"Oh, um—" John's excited greeting died on his lips at the tone of disapproval in her voice. "Nearly ready. Just let me get a fresh nappy on her. . ."

"I did tell you I was coming at half eight."

"Yes, you did. Sorry. Running a bit late," John called from the doorway to Lucy's room.

"I can see that."

He expected that Mary would follow him into Lucy's room, maybe pick out her clothes like she usually did, but she didn't appear. Disappointed, he pulled out some clothes at random and held them up together indecisively. Did they go together? He had no idea. Frustrated, he shoved the top back into the drawer and picked a different one. The top and bottom both had blue on them, so maybe they matched? Despite months of instruction from Mary, he still had no idea how to make an outfit, but he wanted to make Mary happy, so he kept trying.

When he got back to the sitting room, Mary took Lucy from his arms without comment, so he wasn't sure if he had succeeded in his outfit selection or not. He found himself vaguely disappointed, and then chided himself for acting like a child, desperate for approval.

"All right, all ready to go."

"Nappy bag?" Mary said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, erm. . ." He looked around the shambles that was their sitting room. Usually it was neat and tidy and the nappy bag was hanging on the back of the desk chair, but now. . . every surface appeared to be covered with toys, dishes, discarded baby clothes, and—was that a used nappy tucked in the corner? Good grief, what had he been up to? He was usually a fairly tidy person (the state of 221B notwithstanding, but that was mainly Sherlock's doing), but it appeared that his flat had gone spectacularly to hell without Mary's influence.

He finally spotted the nappy bag in a corner under some newspapers and quickly retrieved it for Mary, who took it with a wary expression.

"Did you clean it out?"

"I—I can't remember."

Mary pursed her lips and put the bag over her shoulder. Then she hefted Lucy in her arms and headed toward the door without a word.

"So, where are you ladies off to today?" John asked in a desperate attempt to keep her around a bit longer.

Mary sighed and turned around, shoulders stiff. "John, please. Don't. . ."

He waited, chewing his lip. Don't what? What had he done? Every single part of his body wanted to run to her and wrap his arms around them both, but her rigid posture told him that would be most unwelcome.

". . . Don't do that, please. I need to. . ." Mary closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. "I need to make a clean break."

But why?! he cried inside his head, but he found himself just nodding at her. It wouldn't do to throw himself at her when she so clearly no longer wanted a relationship with him. With a slight inclination of her head, Mary turned and walked out without saying goodbye, with Lucy peeking back over her shoulder grinning at him toothily.

As soon as she was gone, John realized that his fist was tightly clenched, and when he forced it open, the fingers started to tremble violently. Not this again! He couldn't deal with this. It was a psychosomatic reaction, he knew it was, which meant he could control it if he just tried hard enough, but it seemed like his attempts at control were only making the problem worse.

With another shake of his hand, he gathered himself up and looked around the room. He needed to get ready to go, but he had no idea where he might have stashed his wallet and keys. They weren't on the shelf by the door where he usually kept them. With the mess in the flat, he supposed they could be anywhere. Well, not anywhere; he doubted he would find them in the toilet. He sighed and started looking, tidying up as he went.

After fifteen minutes, most of the mess had been cleared away, but he still hadn't found his wallet. On his way past the bookshelves, a familiar-looking photo album caught his eye. Their wedding photos!

Forgetting about the wallet and the need to hurry, John pulled out the album, sat down on the sofa, and flipped it open. The first photo that caught his eye was of him and Mary outside the chapel, with Sherlock on his right, and on the other side of Mary stood. . . not Jeanine as he had been expecting, but Sally Donovan.

He scanned a few more pages, finding mostly the same photos he remembered, but here was Molly dancing with Greg Lestrade, no Tom in evidence, and here was another of Sherlock bouncing Archie on his knee with matching grins on their faces.

John had looked through several more pages when he suddenly looked up and spotted the time. Oh, he had better hurry if he were to get to the morgue before Sherlock arrived. Abandoning the album on the coffee table, he went back to his search for his missing wallet and keys.

He finally found the wallet in the desk drawer, and when he pulled it out, it flipped open and he spotted something unexpected inside: an official-looking badge, complete with the Metropolitan Police Service crest and a serious photo of his face staring back at him. Underneath his photo were the words "John Watson, MBBS" and underneath that, "Forensic Physician".

John stood staring at it for several seconds, brow furrowed. He had an official position at NSY? That was an interesting turn of events that raised even more questions. Did he have an office? What sort of work did he do? He hoped it was something he could figure out without asking a lot of questions, because at the moment he was completely at sea.

He started to return the wallet to the drawer when he noticed something else under it: a slim envelope, with only his name written on the front in block letters. He never remembered having seen this letter before. The envelope was open, so it must have been read at some point, by the other John Watson, the one who had lived this life. Was there really _another_ John Watson? Whose life was he living now? And would it be possible to get the old one back? Because this one was depressing the hell out of him.

Feeling like an intruder, he carefully slipped the envelope from the drawer and stared at it for a long moment. This letter didn't really belong to him (or did it?), but it might hold clues to his alter-ego's life. He needed to read it.

There were no further clues on the envelope, so he pulled the letter out and carefully unfolded it. The paper was plain white, unremarkable, with no letterhead or anything to identify the writer. The letter was type-written in an unremarkable font. In places the paper was bubbled like it had been wet and dried, and the ink was smudged in places, rendering some of the words unreadable, but John could get the gist of it.

_12 June, 2015_

_Dr Watson_

_A little matter has come to my attention, of which I (illegible) that I must inform you. This matter concerns your wife, whom you know as Mary Watson (nee Morstan). I have (illegible) that she has been lying to you about her past._

_My sources indicate that she appropriated the name Mary Morstan from a stillborn baby, to (illegible) true identity and misrepresent herself to you and to the world. Ms Morstan's true nature is much darker indeed and includes a variety of notable assassinations and other (illegible). You may be surprised to learn the extent of her deception toward you._

_I am only sending you this information as a friend, one who does not wish you to come to harm. It is your decision how to (illegible). . ._

The rest of the last sentence had been obliterated by a large water splotch. The letter was unsigned, but John knew it could only have come from Magnussen. This letter told him nothing he didn't already know; instead, it only dredged up past hurts that he thought he had let go of. He refolded the letter and shoved it back into the envelope. If this was the reason he and Mary had separated, then he didn't really recognize this John Watson.

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**A/N: A huge thank you to everyone who has been reading and has reviewed so far. I'd love to have some more reviews so this story will attract more readers. It's always more fun to write when you know people are reading and enjoying your story!**


	14. Chapter 14: Sally

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 14: Sally**

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_Text from a ghost – Dressing an octopus – Nice giraffe. . . or not – Love (doesn't) conquer all – No nap for me, but thanks for the offer_

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Sally finally screwed up her courage, after the baby (Phinney, she reminded herself. Phineas) finished eating, to send the text to Nikola, and then sent one to the number she had for Mary, too, inviting her out for coffee that morning. She didn't know if she could fix whatever happened between Mary and John, but at least she could get some information. And breakfast too, she hoped, since she hadn't found any eggs or even Muesli in the cupboards.

While she was prowling around the flat, looking for the nursery in hopes of setting the now-sleeping baby (who seemed to have gained a stone in the past few minutes) down for a few minutes, her phone chirped. "Shit," she whispered as she felt Phinney stir in her arms. She bounced him a little while fishing the phone from her pocket, and he settled back down. Now where the hell was his nursery? Maybe he didn't have one?

She glanced down at the phone and saw that the text was from Mary, not Nikola. It just said, _The usual?_

Uh-oh. What was the usual? **How about Speedy's, 10:00?** she texted back, hoping Mary wouldn't question her about the change.

The reply was quick. _Yeah, so the usual then_. Oops, apparently Speedy's was "The usual." Well, at least it was convenient, which was good. She didn't think she could handle getting the baby across town in a cab, not to mention she didn't know where to find a buggy, or a coat for him, or even extra nappies. At least now she had a bit of time to get his things together, and wouldn't have far to go if she forgot something.

After a few more minutes of searching, she suddenly realized that, of course, 221B had another floor with a bedroom, the bedroom that had been John's. She had only been in it once, on a "drugs bust" before John moved in, and it had been empty at the time. After that, whenever Lestrade decided to toss Sherlock's flat to try (in vain obviously) to teach him a lesson, they had respected John's space by avoiding that room, so she had almost forgot it existed.

Shifting the baby to her shoulder, she grabbed the handrail and climbed the stairs, pausing at the landing to shift him again because her arm was going numb. By the time she got upstairs, it was nearly nine, and she knew that she was just going to have to get him up again in a few minutes, but she was desperate to set him down, even if just for a moment to have a pee by herself.

Her phone, which was still in her hand, chirped again as she reached the landing, and she looked at it without thinking. It was from Nikola.

**Ok. Feel better, girl.**

That was it. Just four words, but they threw her for a loop. She stood frozen on the stairs and read it again, barely processing the words. So was this real, or not? How was it possible that Nikola was _alive_? Sally had watched her die, almost nine years ago, and then again and again in her nightmares ever since. It just wasn't possible.

She stepped into the nursery and glanced around without really taking any of it in, her mind still on the contradiction of a living, breathing, texting, not-dead Nikola Kim. It wasn't until she was awkwardly laying the baby down in the cot that she noticed something else: Perched in the corner of the cot, with its legs arranged just so, sat a very familiar-looking, gray stuffed elephant with big silky ears.

Once the baby was settled, on his back with his arms up above his head and sweaty curls mashed to his face on one side, she picked up the elephant and examined it more closely. Most of the fur had been loved off, and there were several spots were it had obviously ripped open and had been repaired by hand. When she turned it over, she spotted a faded brownish smudge on the side.

Sally remembered that the last time she had seen this elephant (could it be the same one?), it had fallen from her blood-smeared hand just as they had been pulled back through time to the present. That brownish smudge had to be residue from Sherlock's blood.

Sally carefully set the elephant in the corner of the cot again and backed out of the room. She was finding this a bit too much to process just now, so she decided to focus on getting herself ready to meet with Mary, and that would start with having a pee and a shower, in that order.

An hour later, Sally had managed to locate clothes for herself, cloth nappies and clothes for the baby, and even some rusks that looked homemade (she was fairly sure she hadn't made them, as she had no idea how to bake, but maybe this version of her had turned into Suzy Homemaker?). What she hadn't located were shoes for the baby, or even any sort of footwear for him save one pair of socks jammed in the back of a drawer.

It was nearly ten, so she decided to go ahead and get the baby out of bed, although he was still sleeping very sweetly. As soon as she woke him up, he started to fuss, and the protests intensified when she laid him down and attempted to change his nappy. The one he was wearing was completely soaked through, much more than could have happened in just the couple of hours since he had got up. Evidently Sherlock had fed the baby, but changing nappies was not his area. Big surprise.

It took her much longer than expected to get a clean nappy on him, partly because he kept squirming away, and partly because she found the cloth nappy a bit bewildering. It had a series of snaps along one edge, but no matching snaps in a place that would obviously connect the front and back together. Then when she finally got it figured out and lifted him up, it nearly fell off over his skinny hips. Like father like son, apparently.

She managed to wrestle him into a one-piece romper and even figured out the odd buttons over the shoulder. When she tried to put the socks on his fat little feet, she understood the reason for the lack of footwear because he pitched an almighty fit, screaming so loudly that she was surprised no one came knocking at her door asking them to keep it down.

By that time it was after ten, so she hurried down the stairs to Speedy's, frustratedly tossing the rejected socks onto the sofa on the way out. If he wanted to go barefoot in London in early April, he would have to deal with the consequences.

She entered Speedy's to find Mary already there, tucked into a back booth with two high chairs (one already occupied) pulled up to the end of the table. Sally wouldn't have recognized her if Mary hadn't waved her over.

"Hi, Mary," Sally said with a smile that she hoped Mary would buy, and was surprised when Mary stood up and gave her a quick hug before taking Phinney from her arms.

"Hi yourself! And look at this little chap! I think he's doubled in size since the last time I saw him." Mary picked up one of his bare feet and pretended to bite it, eliciting peals of laughter. "I'm going to eat you up!"

"Oh, uh, yes, growing like a weed," Sally said brightly. "And Lucy is looking. . . bigger too."

In response to her name, Lucy Watson looked up from the paper that she was industriously scribbling on and babbled at her from behind the dummy that was tucked in the corner of her mouth. She held up the paper for Sally's inspection. It appeared to be covered with random squiggles, although there was one line that could have been a neck. . .

"Um, very nice. . . giraffe?"

"Goggie!" Lucy cried.

"Oh, right, doggie. Very nice doggie," Sally responded awkwardly.

Mary laughed as she settled Phinney into the other high chair. Sally was glad to have the help because she didn't think she could have gotten him in there on her own. He seemed to have sprouted octopus tentacles that kept squirming out of the slots as Mary attempted to shove them in. Sally tried in vain to help, nearly getting kicked in the head in the process.

When he was finally in, under protest, Mary slipped back into the booth and Sally slid in across from her. Phinney was still squirming, but he settled down once Sally handed him the stuffed elephant, and he immediately started sucking on one of the well-loved silky ears.

"So, how are you?" Mary asked. "Is he letting you get any sleep?"

"Umm—I suppose. Sleeping through the night mostly—"

"I wasn't talking about Phinney," Mary said with a conspiratorial wink.

"Oh! Well. . ." Sally felt her cheeks heating up. Did she and Mary talk about. . . sex? She wasn't sure she felt comfortable discussing such an intimate subject with someone she hardly knew, especially when she had no information to give! Finally, she said lamely, "Well, Sherlock does play the violin at night sometimes."

Mary smirked. "It's fine, I get it. I can always tell by the look on Sherlock's face, anyway. He's a lot happier when he's getting a leg over regularly."

Sally cut her eyes to the side, desperate to get out of this conversation. Deflect! Deflect! "So how about you?"

"Me? I'm an old divorced woman now, don't you know?" Mary said lightly. Phinney tried to grab for Lucy's dummy and made a frustrated grunting noise when he couldn't quite reach it. Mary leaned over to tickle his bare toes, which distracted him momentarily.

"What about—have you thought about getting back together with John?"

"Sally, we've talked about this. I've tried, I really have. He doesn't want to talk to me, and I need to respect that. Mummy and Daddy aren't getting back together, love."

"But you still love him?" Sally asked. Phineas was still kicking his feet furiously and grabbing for Lucy's dummy, so Sally slipped him a rusk in a desperate attempt to keep him happy. Lucy was still happily coloring away, and Sally felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. Why couldn't her child do that? It was an unfair comparison, she knew, given the difference in their ages (and the fact that her son was also _Sherlock's_ son), but she couldn't help making it just the same.

"Of course I do," Mary said. "I'd give anything to have him back, but he doesn't feel the same. Despite what they say, love can't conquer all."

"But what if he did?"

"It's no use to speculate. He's made it quite clear that he's got on with his life; I need to do the same. I can't keep mooning over him forever. It's high time I move on."

"Move on? Have you got. . . something else on?"

"There's someone at my work—We've gone out a couple of times."

Sally's heart sank. "Really? Who?"

"His name is Collin. He's very sweet. I—I like him, I guess. We're going out tonight, in fact. To Marlebone Road."

"Fancy place."

"Yeah, he's _loaded_," Mary said in a confidential tone, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

The waitress came over at that point and filled Sally's coffee. She asked if Sally wanted to order anything, but even though she was starving, Sally was suddenly desperate to get out of there so she could call John and let him know about Mary's date. She quickly guzzled her coffee, burning her mouth in the process, and as soon as Phinney started to grizzle again at being confined, she used it as an excuse to take their leave.

"So soon?" Mary asked with a frown. "I thought we'd go to the shops."

"Sorry, I'd better get him down for a kip," Sally said hastily, improvising on the spot. "You know what he's like if he doesn't get enough sleep."

"Not this little angel," Mary said, pinching his fat little cheek even though he was squirming and whinging, and covered in goo from his rusk.

"Oh, yes, he's fixing for a strop, I can tell. I'd better get him to bed before it turns into an all-out tantrum."

"Well, if you're sure. I'll call you tomorrow and we can dish about my date."

"Right, perfect."

Sally managed to extricate Phinney from the high chair, by which time he really was starting in on a strop, and escaped Speedy's with all due haste. She was already dialing John by the time she reached the stairs.

"John!" she said immediately as soon as he picked up. "You've got to move quickly!"

"What? Sally, slow down. What are you talking about?"

"With Mary," Sally clarified breathlessly, bouncing Phinney who was whinging in her other ear and grabbing for the phone with his goo-covered hands. "She's started going out with a chap from work!"

"Who?" John demanded.

"She said his name is Collin."

"That doesn't sound familiar. Did she say where she works?"

"I don't know, but she's going out with him tonight to Marlebone Road."

"That's our restaurant!"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do? She's made it pretty clear she wants a clean break."

"Don't be an idiot, John!" Sally paused to put Phinney down on sitting room floor, but then immediately thought better of it when he started to crawl toward a microscope and box of slides that were sitting in the corner. Why the hell wasn't this place baby-proofed?!

"What do you mean?" John's voice came through the line, as Sally scooped Phinney back up onto her lap and handed him the elephant in a vain attempt to keep him happy.

"She still loves you!"

"Did she say that?"

"She said—well, I can't remember the exact words, but she said she wanted you back but you didn't want her."

"Oh? That's not what she said this morning."

"Well, that's what she told me. So what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I'll think about it today."

"Are you going to the morgue?"

"I'm on the way there now, but I don't know what I'm meant to do there. I apparently have some sort of official position that I know nothing about."

"Sherlock too. He had a badge on his belt," Sally said while wrestling with Phinney, who was doing his best to squirm off her lap.

"Sherlock's actually part of NSY? God help us all."

"Yeah, I'm surprised this reality hasn't collapsed under its own weight."

"I'm planning to get to the morgue early. Maybe Molly will be there. She's usually helpful."

"Maybe. Call me if you need back-up. I could have a miraculous recovery from the illness I faked this morning."

"I think Sherlock might figure out something's up if you try that."

Phinney had managed to turn himself entirely upside down, and his flailing foot caught Sally in the chin. She grabbed the foot and tried to turn him 'round, but he was having none of it. "Yeah, well, I might be ready for sectioning by the time this day is over. I swear this kid has some extra limbs I didn't know about."

John snorted in amusement. "Lucy was the same. Kids that age are unbelievably slippery. Well, good luck with that."

"You too."

"And send me a photo of that kid. I'm curious as to what Sherlock's progeny would look like."

"Hell on wheels, but cute as an angel. I'll text you a photo later, if I can get him to sit still long enough." Sally rang off and then sat staring at her baby, who was still trying to worm his way off her lap.

"Well, little man, I don't suppose you'd like to have a kip now, would you?" she asked hopefully.

His only response was a resounding fart and resulting stench emanating from his nappy, followed by an indignant wail.


	15. Chapter 15: John

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 15: John**

* * *

_How inconsiderate of me - Yep, same old. . . Molly? - What's behind the swagger and popped collar? - Meeting a ghost - I suppose we'll ride separately._

* * *

On the way to Bart's, John decided to check his phone to see if perhaps Sherlock had texted him some details about what they were meant to be doing today. When he opened his messaging app, he was confronted with a list of recent texts, with Mary at the top of the list. Distracted, he clicked on her name and scrolled up, but all the texts were perfunctory, just working out details for transferring Lucy back and forth. Nothing to indicate what had gone wrong or that they were trying to work anything out.

No answers there, he thought, and closed the thread from Mary. It took quite a bit of scrolling to get down to Sherlock's thread, and when he opened it, he discovered that the most recent text from him was dated 13 June 2015, so nearly ten months prior. That date sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember why. Nothing special had happened on that day as far as he knew.

The text just said, _I'm sorry. _When he scrolled up, he discovered several more texts from Sherlock from that same day, none of which John had responded to:

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

_I'm sorry_

Prior to that, there was a text that John had sent to Sherlock: **What the hell is going on?!**

Going back further, he found no other texts indicating that anything was wrong. There were a few from Sherlock reporting the circumference of Sally's belly, which took John a few minutes to connect to the fact that she had apparently been pregnant at the time, comments on late-night shopping runs for odd food combinations, and several others noting locations of various places to meet, all containing dashes of humour and good-will.

Frowning, John shut off his phone and returned it to his pocket. What had Sherlock been apologizing for? Jumping off a roof and leaving him behind? Had that even happened in this reality? There were frustratingly few clues available. How inconsiderate of his alternate self not to leave him notes as to how his life had managed to fall apart so completely.

* * *

Everything at St Bart's was just the same as always, completely familiar: offices; walls with dingy paint; non-descript, stain-resistant flooring; smell of Spriclens and formaldehyde. Exactly like the hundred other times he had been there. He really hoped, as he pushed his way through the doors of the morgue a half-hour early, that he would find Molly inside. What if, in this reality, she had been so upset that Sherlock had (somehow!) ended up with Sally Donovan that she had left St Bart's?

His fears were allayed when he came round the corner and spotted Molly behind one of the counters, face half-hidden in the eyepiece of a microscope.

"Hiya, Molly," John said, so happy to see a familiar face in a familiar setting that he didn't even think that perhaps he was interrupting her.

Her head popped up and she gave him a warm smile. "Hi, John. You're early."

"Yeah, sorry. I had a few extra minutes so I thought I'd come on over. If I'm bothering you, I'll—"

"No, no bother. Stick around. I get lonely in here anyway. My customers are good listeners, but they rarely contribute anything to the conversation." She laughed at her own joke, and John joined in easily. It was a relief to have something be the same. Good old Molly.

As he moved around the counter to claim a stool, he came to a sudden halt. She was _pregnant_, hugely so. Her swollen belly pressed against the counter as she leaned over the microscope.

So who was the father? Maybe in this universe she had married Tom because Sherlock was off the market? She wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but John knew that didn't mean anything. In her line of work she was unlikely to wear a ring on the job for fear of injury or contamination.

"So how's Lucy?" Molly asked, turning back to the microscope.

"She's fine, I guess. Mary—Mary took her for the day."

Molly lifted her head just enough to raise an eyebrow at him. "Oh? How are you doing?"

"Um—ok, I guess."

Molly was still watching him with a sympathetic expression, making him wonder how much she knew. "Ok? But. . .?"

John sighed. "I don't know. I wish—I wish things were different, that's all."

"With Mary?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Go after what you want, John. You won't be happy unless you do."

John was about to ask, 'And how exactly do I go about doing that?', but he was interrupted by the morgue door swinging open. Sherlock strode in, followed by Lestrade. He really_ was_ alive, and he looked healthy, too, with the same confident swagger as always. John had never thought he would be so happy to see that ridiculous popped collar.

Sherlock was saying something to Lestrade and didn't look up immediately. Next to John, Molly sat up and brightened considerably. Oh, dear, she wasn't still carrying a torch for Sherlock, was she? Poor Tom. . .

"Hey, Sherlock," John said.

Sherlock did a little stutter-step and a brief flash of . . . _something_ crossed his face. Could it be insecurity? Not the Great Sherlock Holmes. Before John had a chance to analyze it, the flash was gone, replaced by a mask of indifference. Now that Sherlock was closer, John spotted a newish-looking scar across his cheekbone.

"Ah, John," Sherlock said briskly, having apparently recovered. "Have you had a chance to review those wound photographs I had sent over? I was thinking Kaiken Tanto blade."

"N—no, not yet," John said vaguely. He was distracted by Lestrade, who had kept moving when Sherlock had stopped, and was now quite frankly snogging Molly, with one hand on her belly and the other on her hip. So that solved that mystery. Probably wouldn't do to stare, since this version of himself had most likely seen such a display before.

"Well, not to worry," Sherlock was saying. "I'm sure we'll have more to add to the display after today's proceedings. Molly, if you two are quite finished. . ."

"I'm just kissing my wife, Sherlock. Back off," Lestrade rejoined good-naturedly, with an arm thrown around Molly's shoulders. He kissed her again for good measure, eliciting an eye-roll and smirk from Sherlock. John grinned too, but as soon as Sherlock met his eye, Sherlock's smirk dropped and he quickly looked away again with an unreadable expression.

"Didn't you have autopsy findings to share with us, Molly?" Sherlock asked, all business. Molly and Lestrade separated, him with a hrumph and her with a slightly embarrassed expression.

"Oh, yes. I'll just pull him out. The body, I mean."

* * *

It was nearly two hours later that they left Bart's, Lestrade leading the way with John beside him, and Sherlock trailing behind even though John kept slowing down to try to get him to catch up. Every time John slowed down, Sherlock slowed down even more until they were almost stopped in the corridor and Lestrade was looking back at him impatiently.

Finally John gave up and caught up with Lestrade, leaving Sherlock to keep his own company. If the man wanted to stew about who knew what, John couldn't stop him. By the time Sherlock reached the police cruiser, John was already sitting in the back, expecting Sherlock to slide in beside him, but instead Sherlock got into the front passenger seat and buckled up without a word.

A visit to the place the body was found was next, a vacant lot in Southwark, and John suddenly got caught with a jolt of déjà vu. He realized he had been there before, just yesterday. Well, yesterday in his timeline, to be precise. He and Sherlock had gone to this vacant lot with Lestrade and Donovan to search for evidence for this very same murder. He knew what they were going to find, too—not only a marked playing card like had been found near the other bodies, but also the 20-sided die with the odd markings, from which Sherlock had made the leap that put them on the trail to the Wizard's house in Downham.

Sherlock immediately started prowling around like always, muttering to himself and ignoring Lestrade's warnings to be careful and please put on a coverall and booties. He did pull some gloves from his pocket and put them on, although they were black leather instead of the latex gloves Lestrade was holding out to him. John hung back, shoulders hunched a little from the chill, and waited for him to get on with it. He was tempted to point out the die just so he could get inside and have a cup of tea quicker, but he didn't think it wise to interfere. The last time he had tried to change history it hadn't turned out so well.

John jammed his hands into his pockets, tucked his chin into his coat collar, and watched Sherlock work, but his mind was drifting, back to those texts, just "I'm sorry" over and over, with no response. He had forgiven Sherlock for faking his death, hadn't he? Surely he had, but originally it was under duress, when he thought they were both about to be blown to bits. Did that mean it wasn't real? And what had happened last June in this timeline that he hadn't forgiven Sherlock for? Or was it the other way around? Sherlock certainly seemed to be standoffish. Did that mean Sherlock was angry with him as well? If so, why?

He noticed that his hands were in fists again, so tight that his nails were cutting into his palms. He _wasn't_ angry, really, so why did his fists think he was? And why couldn't he get them to relax?

While he was standing there, an unfamiliar young woman came up and stood beside him. When he glanced up at her, a bit startled by her sudden proximity, she smiled and nodded.

"Hi, John."

"Hi, um. . . " He tried to size her up without being obvious about it. She evidently knew him. Asian, average height, fit, long dark hair pulled up into a pony tail. Badge clipped to her belt. . . OH! "Hi, Nikola."

"The git find anything yet?"

"Not yet, but I think he's about to," John said vaguely. At that moment, Sherlock suddenly crouched down near the fence and pulled out his pocket magnifier. That was the right spot. "Yep, I'd say so."

The woman snorted in a way that reminded John of Donovan and headed over to where Sherlock was crouched, evidence bag in hand. John followed after. He could hear Sherlock talking to Nikola and Lestrade, but when he reached the group, Sherlock sort of trailed off. His eyes darted to John and away again, lips pursed like he had lost his train of thought.

John glanced at the ground by the fence, even though he knew what he would find there, half-buried under the dead wet leaves. Sherlock had to know where it came from. He had known immediately in the other timeline. So why didn't he say it?

Sherlock had once told him that people didn't like telling you things but they loved to contradict you. Maybe that same logic would work on Sherlock as well.

"Odd looking die," John said. "Hey, Sherlock, don't they sell these at a shop on Avondale Road?"

"Um. . ." Sherlock's eyes darted back and forth. "Maybe."

Sherlock hadn't contradicted him? Well, that was a surprise. He had to know John was wrong; why hadn't he said it?

"Or maybe it was. . . Downham Way," John said carefully.

The relief on Sherlock's face was palpable. "Yes, that's it. Brilliant, John," he said quickly. "Cosmo's House of Curiosities." He brushed past John and headed toward the gate, leaving John standing with Kim and Lestrade. John wasn't sure if Sherlock wanted him to follow or not. Usually he just called "Come, John!" and expected John to catch up, but this time he crossed the pavement and climbed into the passenger seat of Lestrade's cruiser without a word.

Lestrade gave John a sympathetic smile and said, "I suppose we're going to Downham. Do you want to ride with Nikola? Or should we meet you back at the Yard later?"

Interesting that Lestrade assumed he wouldn't want to ride with Sherlock if he had a choice. "No, I'll—um—I'll ride with Nikola, I suppose."

After he had buckled his seatbelt, he realized that his fist was clenched on his lap, and when he tried to relax it, the tremor returned. I'm not angry, he reminded himself. I'm NOT. But it wasn't working. He distracted himself by looking around the car and spotted a photo tucked into the sun visor—Nikola hugging a girl in her early teens, with a shy smile, dark hair done up in a ponytail. This could only be the daughter Sally had mentioned, whose name John couldn't remember.

John tried to make small talk with Nikola while inside he was stewing. What was going on with Sherlock? It was like the man didn't even want to talk to him. Were they not actually friends anymore in this reality? The Sherlock he knew wouldn't have dumped their friendship over something minor. What was wrong with everyone here?

He couldn't help but wish he could have his old life back, although he remembered there was a lot about it that was shitty as well. But surely it was better than THIS, right? Would it be possible to get it back? Sally had suggested they try to find the time portal again. If they could, would that even work? Would it take them back to the same point? And if it did, could he somehow undo what they had done? It was unlikely (highly improbable?), but maybe it was worth a try because this sucked.


	16. Chapter 16: John again (surprise!)

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 16: John again (surprise!)**

* * *

_Is that a human spleen?! - In case of estrangement, take stairs - not a spark but a lump - that wasn't what I meant to say - it's there in black and white - one down, one to go_

* * *

The trip to Cosmo's House of Curiosities yielded a preserved human spleen in a jar, just as John remembered, except this time instead of Sally Donovan pulling a face and exclaiming "Is that a _human_ spleen?" it was Nikola Kim. And then it was another awkward car ride back to the Yard with John sitting on his trembling hand and trying to make conversation with Nikola without looking like a complete idiot. The only bright spot was when a text came through from Sally with a photo of a laughing, wide-eyed baby with a head full of dark curls and sweet pink lips. She wasn't joking when she had said the baby looked like Sherlock. The photo was accompanied by a text. _Found a copy of his birth certificate. Phineas John Holmes, born 9 July 2015._

Born 9 July? That was nearly a month after Sherlock had apparently broken off all contact, and yet the baby's second name was John. That had to mean something, right?

* * *

"Right, I'm off to lunch," Lestrade announced when they got back to the Yard. "Who's with me?"

"Now?!" Sherlock demanded, hefting the red evidence bag up onto his shoulder. "We need to analyze this spleen."

"Sherlock, It's floating in formaldehyde. It's not going anywhere. Now it's nearly four o'clock and I'm starved. Let's take a break."

"Yeah, I'm in," Nikola said. "John, what about you?"

"I think I'll go with Sherlock," John replied, although he was hungry too. Sherlock, who was already walking away, paused and briefly glanced his direction, but immediately turned away again. John hurried to catch up, ignoring Kim and Lestrade's raised eyebrows.

Sherlock led him quickly down a maze of back hallways into a section of NSY that John had never seen before. John kept scrambling to catch up but Sherlock was always a step ahead, back straight and tense. They tromped up two—three—four flights of stairs, by which time John's legs were aching. Wouldn't the lift have been easier? Ah, but then they would have been stuck together in a small room, which John had a feeling Sherlock would want to avoid.

They ended up at a beige metal door with LAB marked across it in block letters. It was locked, but Sherlock swiped his badge across the pad and it clicked open. He entered without looking back at John, but his hand lingered on the door for an extra few seconds until John had cleared the entryway.

Once they were inside, Sherlock went immediately to a counter and started unpacking the evidence bag without a word. This was an area of the Yard that John had never been in before, as far as he remembered. Some of the equipment looked familiar, but most of it he had no idea how to use. He sincerely hoped Sherlock wouldn't suddenly hand him something squishy and ask him to analyze it.

John didn't know what to do, so he stood near the doorway with his hands in his pockets and watched Sherlock work. He had pulled on a pair of gloves and was lining up equipment and bottles of mysterious fluids on the counter.

John could feel Sherlock watching him out of the corner of his eye. Once Sherlock lifted his head slightly and turned his direction, but when he caught John's eye he quickly looked away again.

Ok, enough already.

"Sherlock, I need to tell you something."

Sherlock's head came up again. "Oh, are we doing conversation today?"

Whoa, that line was familiar. Except, when Mary had said it, her tone was sarcastic. In this case, John would have to say maybe it was a sincere question. Sherlock's wide serious eyes swept over John and his lower lip tightened in a way that was suddenly heartbreakingly familiar. John could see in his mind a tiny version of that very face, and heard an echo of a piping little voice saying, "You're angry."

John felt his left hand clench in his pocket. "I'm angry," he blurted out, even though that wasn't what he had meant to say. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that it was true. It wasn't a hot spark of rage, but rather a cold, hard lump in his gut. Old anger. Bitterness that came from unforgiveness.

"Yes, I know," Sherlock said with a minute shrug. "But there's nothing I can do to change the past. You don't understand why Mary and I did what we did, and there's nothing I can do about it. No amount of apologies will change it, obviously."

Sherlock turned back to his work setting up a microscope, with his lower lip tucked between his teeth. Both of John's hands were clenched into tight fists now. The lump had grown and was now trying to crawl up his throat, but he still didn't understand why he was so angry. What had Sherlock and Mary done?

Suddenly an image pushed its way into his mind, one that he was sure he had never lived:

_He was faced off against Sherlock in the rain, on the pavement on Baker Street, his heart thumping madly in his ears. Sherlock's wet fringe dripped into his face; blood flowed freely from a gash in his cheek. John's left hand, still in a fist, throbbed with a familiar ache. The gash had come from John's wedding ring, he realized, but he didn't understand. He had obviously punched Sherlock, but why? _

_Sherlock cried hoarsely, "I was trying to help!", but John just shook his head._

"_That wasn't helping," John shouted back. He held up a piece of paper, spotted with rainwater, clutched in his right hand. "You should have told me!"_

_John turned and walked away, even though he could hear Sherlock calling "I'm sorry! John!" in a horrible broken voice thick with tears._

What was on the paper? John couldn't quite make out the words. Just a plain white paper, simple black text, smudged in spots. A letter?

No, not just a letter, he realized, _the_ letter he had found in the little desk in his sitting room. The letter from Magnussen, dated 12 June, just one day before the last series of texts he had received from Sherlock. The letter that he thought had told him nothing, actually told him _everything_, just by the fact of its very existence. In this timeline, he hadn't found out about Mary's past from her own lips. He had found out about it from Magnussen, and somehow Sherlock had already known about it but kept the truth from him. In that situation would John have felt betrayed enough to dump the woman he loved and nearly destroy his friendship with Sherlock? This version of him apparently had made that choice.

John chewed his lip. Did it matter how he had found out? The lie was the same, and he had proof from his own experience that their relationship was salvageable. If he could forgive Sherlock for leaving him behind while he played dead for TWO YEARS, he could forgive this.

He could see Sherlock watching him out of the corner of his eye. Finally his head came back up from the microscope. John had never seen him looking so uncertain, so insecure. It was painful to watch.

"What? Have I got something on my face?"

_Yes, a big scar that I put there, _John thought but didn't say. _I'm a giant arsehole who dumped his wife and permanently scarred his best friend_.

When John didn't answer, after a few seconds Sherlock's gaze dropped to the floor.

"Sorry, I'll just—I'll get back to work. . ." Sherlock trailed off lamely and turned back to the counter, where the bottles of chemicals sat all lined up in a neat row, waiting to analyze the spleen.

"Sherlock, listen," John said. Sherlock froze but didn't turn to face him again. "Listen, I'm angry, but—" John didn't know exactly what Sherlock and Mary had done in this timeline, but he decided he didn't care. He couldn't live without the two people he loved most in the world. "I forgive you."

Sherlock actually flinched. His head jerked John's direction, eyes wide like John had just thrown water in his face. "Sorry?"

"I forgive you."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why?" he demanded

"Because I decided to. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. . . both of you."

". . . Oh." Sherlock said quietly, still squinting at John.

"And I'm sorry, too."

"For what?" he asked with his brow furrowed.

"For what I did to your face, for starters."

The furrow cleared. "Oh, that," Sherlock said with a smirk. "It's nothing. Sally says it makes me look roguishly handsome."

"But I am sorry I did it. You could say you forgive me too."

"It was nothing."

"You could say it anyway," John suggested quietly.

"Oh. All right." Sherlock's face turned serious. John expected a scowl, irritation, scorn, but he saw no traces of it. "John, I can't say I forgive you because I already forgave you, the moment after it happened. Do you understand?"

John blinked and nodded. "Good. That's good."

Sherlock nodded back. "Good." He flashed John an almost shy half-grin and turned back to his work. The grin stuck around while he started opening flasks and measuring out chemicals, although he seemed to be attempting to suppress it, and John felt his face morph to match.

So that was taken care of (well, maybe. Knowing Sherlock he might have to be reminded that he was forgiven a few more times before he believed it). But that didn't fix things with Mary. That one would be more difficult, John was sure.

Everything could be solved if he could just get back to the Wizard's house to find that time machine/portal/whatever again. In the other timeline, Sherlock had found the clue that led them there from his analysis of the spleen, although John didn't really understand how he had made the leap. So if John just went there and found the right hallway again, with that little door. . . Might be tricky to get Sally in there with him, but maybe he didn't need her this go around. If he could just find the other version of himself and Sally and stop them before they went into that warehouse. . .

While John was thinking this, his eyes fell on Sherlock's phone, which was sitting out on the counter. The screen had lit up with a text notification, and before Sherlock picked it up, John caught a glimpse of the background picture—a candid shot of Sherlock standing, barefoot, in his shirtsleeves with his trouser legs rolled up, on a beach with his arm around a smiling Sally Donovan, who was holding a laughing, gooey, sand-covered baby. Sherlock was looking down at the baby with an indulgent grin on his face. He looked. . . _happy_, happier than John had ever seen him.

Oh, the baby! Sherlock and Sally had a baby! If John went back and "fixed" the timeline (somehow, was that even possible?), that baby would no longer exist. Maybe John had been happier in the old timeline, but Sherlock. . . Sherlock had been alone, even if he would deny being lonely. Had he been unhappy? Was he happier now, with a wife and son? It seemed so. Could John really take that away from him?


	17. Chapter 17: Sally

**Infinite Improbabilities**

* * *

**Chapter 17: Sally**

* * *

_All. touched. out - Too tired for a shower - Stop, freak! - STILL not a dream, dammit!_

* * *

At 4:27 precisely, Sally decided she didn't want a baby after all. Phineas had gone through five dirty nappies in an hour, including three that blew out of the nappy entirely and covered him in filth from curls to toes. He had screamed bloody murder through an attempted bath, slammed his head so hard into hers that she had seen stars, seemed to be on permanent nap strike, and was only semi-calm when he was practically sucking her nipple off. She was _all touched out_, and when she looked at the clock and saw that it wasn't even half four yet, she nearly burst into tears right along with him.

A few minutes later he surprised her by falling into a deep sleep right in the middle of a full wail. One minute shrieking at the top of his lungs, the next complete silence. It was unnerving, but certainly not unwelcome.

Once she had determined that he was in fact still breathing, she contemplated what to do. At the moment, she was trapped on the sofa under him, bra unhooked, her shirt stained with spit-up, mashed peas, and a few other mystery splotches that she preferred not to think about.

It was a bit nerve-wracking to try to get up, because she had discovered that the slightest movement would turn on the waterworks again, and she wasn't up for that. However, she did desperately need a pee; otherwise she would have been tempted to just fall asleep right there on the sofa with him on her shoulder.

She managed to make it up the stairs without too much fuss. When she laid him down in the cot, he stirred a little and her heart sank, but he settled back down quickly and she carefully tiptoed out.

After she had used the loo, she thought briefly of a shower: even though she had had one that morning, she felt grimy and sticky, and could smell the sour stench of baby spit-up on her clothes and skin. But at the moment her exhaustion was so thick and complete that it seemed an insurmountable task. How did stay-at-home mums do this day in and day out? It seemed quite impossible.

She went into the bedroom to try to find a new outfit for herself, but the bed looked so inviting that she had to sit on it, just for a moment. And then it was so comfortable that she ended up lying down on her back, on top of the rumpled covers.

_I'll just close my eyes for a minute_, she thought. Try to forget about what a stinking mess this all was. Try to relax and ignore the fact that her breasts were leaking all over her bra and shirt. Try to. . .

Next she knew, she was caught in a familiar nightmare, one that had been replaying in her mind in a constant loop for the past nine years.

_She is running with Nikola down an alley, chasing after the Freak who is ignoring her calls to stop and wait for backup. Her blood is pounding in her ears with fury. She catches a glimpse of the tail of his coat disappearing through a doorway into a dark building._

_Nikola follows him in, with Sally on her heels, even though every fiber of her being is screaming at Nikola to stop just stop right there it's a trap don't die don't diepleasedontdiepleaseplease, but she can't get the words to come out of her mouth. Everything is moving too fast, just like always._

_It's dark inside and both officers stop for a moment to let their eyes adjust. Sherlock is nowhere in sight._

"_You idiot, get back here!" Nikola hisses. Sally's heart is in her throat._

"_Get down!" Sherlock's voice shouts. In slow motion now Sally drops to the floor, but Nikola doesn't. Instead she spins around looking for Sherlock. Sally knows what will happen next: She will turn just as the gunshot sounds, and Nikola will fall with blood spurting out of her neck. It's the same every time; there is nothing Sally can do to stop it. The rest will be only snapshots. Flashing red lights. A jerky ambulance ride. Nikola making horrible gurgling sounds. Blood everywhere, coating Sally's hands, the gurney, soaking into Sally's clothes. Then punching Sherlock in the nose and making him bleed too. All of this flashes through Sally's mind in an instant while she lays on the floor, powerless, and waits for the shot that will take the life of her best friend._

_But this time it's different. There is a blur of black—Sherlock appears out of nowhere and knocks Nikola to the ground just as the shot rings out. She hears the dull thud of the bullet impacting the back wall._

_Footsteps echo on the concrete floor of the shooter running away, and then Nikola cries out, "Get off me, you moron!"_

_Sally turns, mouth open, and sees a very alive Nikola scrambling out from under Sherlock, who is still lying on the floor._

"_You could have got us killed!" Nikola shouts. She kicks him in the side, but he doesn't move. "Ow, my arm! You broke my arm, you berk!" Nikola pulls back her foot to kick him again. Sally squints at them, wondering why he doesn't get up._

"_Sherlock? Get up!" she commands, but he just moans and hunches in on himself with his knees pulled up. Sally pulls him over onto his back and sees that his eyes are squeezed shut. Why? What's wrong with him? She can't see any obvious injuries. When she reaches down to shake his shoulder, he cries out in pain. Her hand comes away red with blood that she couldn't see on the black of his coat._

_Sally yanks open his coat and jacket and sees red saturating his white shirt. She rips the shirt open, sending buttons flying, and discovers that his shoulder is a pulpy mess. In the background she can hear the sound of Nikola calling 999 for help._

_And then Nikola is singing, no words just notes, pure and sweet, in a tantalizingly familiar tune. Why would she—_

Sally came slowly back to the awareness that she was still lying on her back on a soft white duvet. Oh, that was a dream, and the music was a violin. Now she was back to reality, but the wrong reality, that still stubbornly refused to be a dream no matter how much she wanted it to.

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**A/N: I'd love to read your review! Just click the button below and tell me what you think.**


	18. Chapter 18: John

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 18: John**

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_Reset button - fake laughter - That wasn't part of the plan (what was the plan again?) - Bye bye, Lobster Thermidor - John doesn't take a taxi - What Mary wants - Self-plagiarism_

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As John stood staring at Sherlock, he thought of something else: Nikola Kim—if the timeline changed back to the way it had been, she would be dead and her daughter—the girl with the ponytail and shy smile—would grow up motherless.

Maybe there was another way to fix this timeline without pushing the reset button. He just had to get Mary back, and he realized that, thanks to Sally, he knew just where she'd be tonight. He'd simply go send her date packing, and she'd fall into his arms in gratitude, and then everything would be peachy. Sherlock and Sally could keep their baby, Nikola's daughter could keep her mum. . . everyone would be happy.

"I've got to—I've got to go. Watch your step in the Wizard's house."

Sherlock looked up from his phone and raised his eyebrows at John, but John didn't pause to explain. He just spun on his heel and darted out of there without looking back.

* * *

Sally had said Mary's date was at six, but by the time John got across town to Marlebone, it was nearly seven. Bloody London traffic! He spent the entire cab ride sitting on his hand and cursing under his breath. He was sure the cabbie thought he was a complete loon, but he hardly cared. The only thing that mattered was getting to the restaurant before Mary left, maybe even went home with _Collin, _whoever the hell that was.

He tossed the money at the cabbie without even waiting for his change, and stopped on the pavement just outside the entryway to the restaurant to shake out his hands. It wouldn't do to march in there with clenched fists. Mary would just toss him out on his ear, which was not the desired outcome.

As he entered the restaurant, the Maitre D' said "Sir, do you have a reservation?" while looking down his nose at John's jumper and jeans, but John just strolled past him.

"Just looking for a friend. Won't be a moment," he said casually. He wished he had the gall to nick a bowtie and pose as a waiter as Sherlock had, but as he recalled, that hadn't worked out so well either.

He scanned the room and spotted Mary's blond head in the far corner. She was seated with her back to him, and next to her sat a familiar-looking man with slicked-back dark hair. As he watched, the man turned so John could see his profile: pointy nose, knobby chin. . . Dr Collin Underwood! Of course! John had never liked the way he had looked at Mary (or any of the other women in the surgery, for that matter), and now he knew why.

While he watched, Underwood leaned over and whispered something into Mary's ear. John heard her laugh over the soft sounds of conversations in the dining room. He knew that laugh. It was Mary's fake, uncomfortable laugh that she slipped into frequently in social situations, usually just before she pinched John's arm in the silent message that meant it was time to leave.

John watched, frozen, as Underwood's hand slid up to Mary's neck and rested there possessively. Oh, no, this was not on. That man's slimy hands did not belong on his wife's beautiful neck.

John's feet started moving involuntarily before his brain had entirely worked out what he was planning to say. As a result, when he got to the table, all he did was croak out, "Mary!"

She looked up with a surprised expression on her face. "John?"

"M—Mary, I—I need to talk to you."

Mary's lips pursed. "What about?"

About what? About what?! What did he want to tell her again? Think! Mary asking questions had never been part of his plan, such as it was, and he didn't know how to respond. ". . .About—about Lucy. Where is she?"

"She's with Mrs Hudson, John. You knew that."

"Excuse me," Underwood, whose pointy nose made him sort of look like a weasel (an apt comparison, John decided), interrupted. "Who are you?"

Ah, so this version of Dr Underwood had never met John. Probably a good thing. "I'm her husband!"

"EX-husband," Mary clarified. "And he was just leaving."

"Wait! Mary, I really want to talk to you. It's—"

"There's nothing more to say." Mary slid out of the seat, pulling her handbag with her, and started collecting her jacket off the hook at the end of the table.

"Where are you going?" John and Underwood cried together. The other man hurriedly started to slide out of the booth as well.

"I'm going for some fresh air. Suddenly it's stifling in here."

"Wait, Mary!" John called after her. Underwood had extricated himself from the booth now and grabbed John's arm as he started to follow Mary. They had attracted quite a lot of attention from other diners, who were watching disapprovingly.

"Hey, arsehole," the man hissed in John's ear. "I was going to shag that bit of skirt, and you interrupted that."

Faster than thought, John's hand, which was luckily already curled in a fist, shot out and connected with the man's pointy nose. He stumbled back, fell over another diner, and landed on his arse on the floor, blood spurting from both nostrils. John stood panting, eyes wide as he suddenly realized what he had done. Oh, God, this was the second time he had punched someone in this restaurant. They were never going to let him back in here. He would never again taste their delicious lobster thermidor. . .

Mary, who hadn't yet reached the door, turned to look when she heard the crash. She started back toward him, and by the murderous look in her eyes, John was sure he was about to get slapped or worse. But instead she just grabbed John by the arm and started towing him toward the door, stepping over the prone body of her erstwhile date on the way.

John stumbled along to the pavement, where it had started pissing down rain because of course it had. Mary dropped his arm and stood under the awning with her arms folded, glaring at him. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off he realized that his hand HURT. Not just a little bit—a LOT, like maybe he had broken something.

He heard a sigh from Mary. "You idiot."

There didn't seem to be any appropriate response he could make to that, so he stayed quiet and tried to keep from whimpering in pain. His hand throbbed in time with his rapid heartbeat and rainwater was dripping into his eyes and down his collar.

After a moment, Mary's car pulled up to the kerb. The valet got out, and Mary slid into the driver's seat. Right. That was that then. He had botched things up but good. A taxi was probably in order. So much for everything being peachy. Interrupting Mary's date hadn't quite worked out the way he had hoped, and he had missed his opportunity to find the time portal at the Wizard's house, dammit.

As he was looking up the street for a black cab, Mary's window slid down. "Get in."

"What?"

"Get in. I have to take Lucy home anyway. May as well take you too."

"Oh. Ok." John squelched his way into the car, dripping rainwater all over the upholstery. As soon as he closed the door, Mary took off with tires squealing. John, who was still trying to get his seatbelt buckled, was forced to hang onto the grab bar with his left hand so he didn't topple over in the seat. Oh GOD that hurt.

Mary's lips stayed pressed into a straight line all the way to Baker Street, so John kept his mouth shut as well and stared out the windscreen while he watched her out of the corner of his eye, trying to judge how angry she really was. His own anger was mostly spent, replaced by exhaustion and pain, but he wasn't sorry for punching that wanker. The man had deserved it.

At Baker Street, Mary zipped into a parking spot and jumped out of the car. John wasn't sure what she expected him to do, so he just stayed put, silently dripping on the seat and feeling increasingly uncomfortable in his wet clothes. His hand still ached, and when he tried to bend his fingers, the sharp pain pulled a gasp from his lips.

A moment later Mary was back with Lucy in her arms, her coat pulled over them both to shield them from the rain. John jumped out and went round to open the car door for them, which caused Mary to stop in her tracks and glare at him suspiciously.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Dada!" Lucy screeched before Mary could respond.

"Lucy!" He mimicked her with a grin. Her little arms reached for him, so he took her from Mary and buckled her into her carseat, very carefully with his right hand only.

". . . Thanks," Mary said. She got back into the driver's seat, and this time she waited for John to put on his seatbelt before pulling away from the kerb at a reasonable speed. Her lips were still pressed together, but the edges had softened a little.

When they pulled up in front of their (well, his now) flat, John was prepared to take Lucy out of the car and watch Mary drive away, but instead she got out with him and hoisted the nappy bag onto her shoulder while he unbuckled their daughter, who had fallen asleep in her carseat with a line of drool connecting her mouth to the front of her coat. He hefted her carefully in his arms, then Mary led the way up to the door and unlocked it with a key she had pulled from her purse.

Once inside, Mary dropped the nappy bag on the back of its usual chair. She looked around the newly tidied sitting room with raised eyebrows, although she didn't say anything. John was expecting her to leave, but instead she walked on through to the kitchen without a word.

Lucy was still asleep, so John carried her into her bedroom and gently laid her down in her cot. Such a simple, domestic action. He had done it dozens of times before, and his heart ached with longing for the normalcy of it. Yes he loved danger, and adventure, but he loved his family too. He wanted them back together so badly it hurt, even more than the throbbing in his hand.

Speaking of his hand, it was time to go face the music with Mary. He supposed the best he could hope for was a tongue-lashing. Oh well, at least Sherlock would still have his baby. And Sally had looked happy too, in the picture. They could keep their happy life, while John would be alone. . .

He hesitantly came back into the sitting room to find her sitting on the sofa, looking through their wedding album that John had left out of the coffee table. She had a little smile on her face that disappeared when she looked up and saw him watching.

"Here." She stood up with something in her hand and walked toward him. When she got close enough he saw that it was a flannel-wrapped ice pack. "For your hand. That must hurt."

John glanced down to discover that his knuckles had turned purple and swollen. "Yes, it does," he admitted, but didn't elaborate with exactly how _much_ it hurt. Her cold fingers brushed his as she handed him the ice, and she quickly pulled away.

"I'm sorry for ruining your date."

Mary sighed. "Why did you do that, John? You can't just waltz in and. . . After all we've been through. . ."

"He called you a bit of skirt and said he was going to shag you," John interrupted hotly.

"So you were defending my honor."

"Yeah. Something like that."

"My knight in shining armor." There was that gently sarcastic tone again. John stared down at his swollen knuckles and said nothing. "Only one small problem. I don't _need_ a knight in shining armor."

"What do you need, Mary?"

"I need—no, I _want_. . . a partner. Someone to walk with me."

"Mary. . ."

"I know what I want, but I can't have it, so I've got to live with that."

John dared to look up and saw, behind her light tone, real pain in her eyes. "I know what I want too," he said softly. "I want you back."

"You do?"

"Yes. I love you, Mary." He took a deep breath. "The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege." He was shamelessly plagiarizing himself, but he didn't care. Mary wouldn't know the difference, and they were, after all, words he himself (or at least one version of himself) had prepared to say to her.

"Oh, John. . ." There were tears standing in Mary's eyes now, and she was biting her lip. John was overwhelmed with love for her. How had he ever let this amazing, contradictory, infuriatingly wonderful woman go?

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**A/N: Reviews make the world go 'round. I'd love to read yours!**


	19. Chapter 19: Sally

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Chapter 19: Sally**

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_Moonshine lullaby, reprise – Memory download – Sherlock makes a joke – Sally makes a mistake-or does she? – Sally is ridiculous_

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Sally lay still and listened to the strains of the violin floating up through the floorboards. That music—It was Moonshine Lullaby, her father's favorite song. As she listened, more memories slowly filtered through:

_Sitting in a hospital waiting room, staring at the stained lino for six hours while they stitched Sherlock's shoulder back together._

_Months of driving him to physical therapy appointments as he learned to use his arm again. Sherlock throwing his bow in frustration when he couldn't play his violin._

_Sherlock kissing her on the roof of St Bart's hospital, with her fingers curled in the lapels of his coat. _

_A flash of Sherlock sitting in a chair in the kitchen soaking wet, with dripping curls hanging in his eyes, face streaked with tears, while she bandaged a bloody gash on his cheek. _

_Propped up in a hospital bed with a tightly wrapped newborn in her arms and a knot of anxiety in her throat, and then looking up to see a wild-eyed Sherlock come skidding into the doorway. He gasped, "Oh no, I've missed it! Traffic was so bad I ran the last three blocks." She felt tears starting in her eyes, and then he was across the room in a bound, and his arms were around her and the baby. Her anxiety melted away._

Two sets of memories existed side-by-side in her mind. In one set she was standing at Nikola's grave on a perversely bright sunny day, with Lyra tucked under her arm. In the other she was sitting in the waiting room of the physical therapist's office with Sherlock, giggling while he made increasingly ludicrous deductions under his breath to her about the other patients. Which set was real? She didn't even know anymore.

Shaking her head, Sally pushed herself out of the bed and followed the strains of the violin out of the bedroom and down the hall. The melody was familiar, but Sherlock was improvising in a way that turned the simple little tune into something ethereal and beautiful.

When she entered the sitting room, she saw Sherlock standing at the window in his shirtsleeves with his back to her. Phinney sat in a baby seat next to his feet, watching with rapt attention, with a dummy in his mouth. Of course! That was why he had been grizzling all day. He wanted his dummy.

"There's Chinese takeaway if you're hungry," Sherlock said without turning around. "Well, I suppose even if you're not hungry, it's there all the same." Had Sherlock just told. . . a joke? "I put it in the fridge because I didn't know when you were getting up."

". . . ok."

Sherlock played a few more notes, this time an upbeat tune Sally recognized but couldn't name, causing the baby to squeal in glee. "Are you feeling better?"

"Oh, um, yeah. Better,"

"John said he forgave me today." apologized to me today."

"He did? For jumping off the roof?" Sally said without thinking. Sherlock stopped playing and turned his head to give her a funny look. Sally frowned. Hadn't he. . .?

"What?"

"Oh. That must have been something I dreamt. I mean. . . um. . . for. . ."

"For conspiring with Mary to take care of Magnussen without telling John about her past," Sherlock finished for her. "Are you sure you're feeling better?"

"I'm fine, just. . . just half-awake. Sorry. So he—he forgave you?"

"Yes. And he wanted me to forgive him too. I don't think he understood that I had already forgiven him, ages ago." More upbeat music, with Phinney clapping along and bouncing in his seat. Sally took in the scene in wonder. Sherlock seemed. . . happy. Was it possible for Sherlock to be happy? Who was this man?

Sally took a few steps toward them, biting her lip, just as Sherlock turned and she spotted the blood on his shirt.

"What happened to you?" she demanded anxiously.

He looked down at his shirt and broke into a feral grin. "We caught a serial killer today," he said smugly.

"You did?"

"Yes, Lestrade is lucky to have me around. How would he ever solve these cases without me?"

Sally smirked. That sounded like the real Sherlock Holmes. "What was the case?"

"We finally tracked down the Wizard."

"What?! Was—was John with you? Is he all right? Is he. . .?" Oh! The Wizard! The time portal!

"He left early. Said he had a family emergency." Sherlock sniffed. "Although I don't exactly consider interrupting Mary's date an emergency."

Sally's smirk widened into a grin. So John had really done it then. God, she hoped it had worked out well. "So you caught the Wizard then?"

"Of course I did. Did you expect anything less?"

"I suppose not."

Sherlock set down the violin and bow and swept the baby, who had begun to squirm, out of his seat with a flourish that quickly had him giggling again. "You should have seen his house, Sally. It was stuffed full of antique magic equipment and funhouse exhibits."

"It was? Where do you suppose he got it all?" Sally asked, distracted by watching Sherlock dance with the baby.

"I've no idea. Some of it was quite old, but all in perfect condition."

"Maybe. . . maybe he went back in time and got it."

"That. . . is ridiculous," Sherlock said with a laugh. He unexpectedly caught Sally by the waist and included her in their dance around the flat, with the baby in one arm and her on the other. Sally was hopeless at dancing, but now she felt like she was floating, and Sherlock was grinning, and the baby was giggling like mad, and they both smelled deliciously of strawberries. And suddenly, Whoa—bam!—Just like that, Sally was in love, with this man, with this family, with this life.

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**A/N: This is your penultimate chance to review! Hurry, hurry!**


	20. Epilogue: John

**Infinite Improbabilities**

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**Epilogue: John**

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_No news is good news, right? - Not Tamarind (oh, you knew that?) - Loxodonta Africana - unexpected inside jokes - Not so weird (or is it?) - Not right but right_

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For three days after John had left Sherlock behind in the lab, he heard nothing. No texts, no calls from either Sherlock or Sally. No word on how they were getting on. . . or not. Although he supposed he would have heard if there had been a homicide on Baker Street.

He managed to find his "new" office, and discovered he even had a very efficient assistant who brought him up to speed on their current cases without asking too many questions (although John was sure she wondered why he didn't remember any of it). A few times he saw something that looked familiar, but the memories were slippery. He could sense them at the edge of his awareness, but if he tried to focus on them, they vanished. And then when he tried to bring up clear memories of how things had been _before_, he found them clouded, overlaid with slightly different images, like a double-exposed print from an old-fashioned camera.

Mary moved back in, and although they were still dancing 'round each other a bit, it was getting easier, at least on John's part. Mary still seemed to be a bit uncomfortable, as if unsure whether this was going to last, but John was determined to make it work. Whenever he got frustrated, he just reminded himself what it felt like to wake up in their flat alone and discover all her things gone.

On day three, he finally picked up his phone and texted Sally. **How are things?**

It was almost an hour before she texted him back. _Good. You?_

**Yeah, good.**

_Good._

**Working any new cases?**

_Wrapping up loose ends on the Wizard case._

**Oh. Ok**. John found himself vaguely disappointed that he hadn't been called back in on that case, but he had others to keep him busy, which he supposed Sherlock would know. **Want to meet us for dinner on Saturday?** he texted impulsively.

_Who is "us"?_

**Mary and me and Lucy.**

_You're back together?! Lovely! Yes, let's. How about Tamarind?_

**Sherlock won't eat curry. Says the smell gets in his coat and lingers for weeks.**

_Oh, right. I forgot. Angelo's?_

John's eyebrows went up. Sally knew about Sherlock's curry aversion? And Angelo's? **Ok. Bring the little monster. I need to meet him.**

_Little monster is right. Will do._

* * *

John and Mary arrived at Angelo's five minutes late, to find Sherlock and Sally already there, tucked into a booth in the back with two high chairs pulled up to the end of the table. Both high chairs were empty, and John had a moment of disappointment thinking that perhaps they hadn't brought the baby, but then Sherlock stood up to greet them, and in his arms was a tiny carbon copy of himself, right down to the cowlick in the part and the divot above his upper lip. John's breath caught in his throat at the sight and he couldn't help but stare gormlessly at the baby, who was sucking on the ear of a threadbare soft elephant. The phrase "Lox-uh-don-tuh Af-ri-ca-nuh" floated through his mind, in a high-pitched, childish lisp. Where had he heard that before? And the elephant looked familiar, but how could he have seen it before, seeing that he had never met the baby?

When he finally met Sherlock's eye, he was surprised to see a flash of insecurity there. He hadn't said anything, but was chewing the inside of his cheek and seemed to be waiting anxiously for John to speak first, as if John might suddenly decide to rescind his forgiveness.

John couldn't help himself. He threw his arm around Sherlock's neck and pulled him into a fierce hug that had the baby nearly squashed in between them. After a moment's hesitation, Sherlock shifted the baby to his hip and returned the hug just as fiercely.

John held the hug longer than he had intended, probably long enough to make Sherlock uncomfortable, but he didn't care. It just felt so good to have things be right between them again, like it hadn't been for months even in the other timeline.

"I'm glad you came. I was worried you wouldn't show up," Sherlock said in John's ear.

"Me too."

"So we're—uh—good now?"

"Yeah. But I'm still not playing Cluedo with you."

Sherlock made a noise that was halfway between a chuckle and a giggle, and John felt something loosen inside his chest. He had missed that sound so much. How many months had it been since he had heard Sherlock really laugh?

John finally pulled away when he felt a tiny, moist hand latch onto his ear. He turned to find the baby's slobbery face inches from his, grinning toothily.

"Hey, there, Phinney," he grinned back in delighted surprise. It was one thing to hear about the abstract concept of a little Sherlock-clone out there, or even to see a picture. It was quite another to have said clone grab your ear and smile at you.

John saw that Sally had stood up too, and Mary had pulled her into a tight hug as well. When Sherlock turned away to wipe the baby's face, John heard Mary whisper into Sally's ear, "Sherlock looks happy," with a smirk on her face. Sally caught John's eye briefly, turned pink and quickly looked away again. Since when did Sally and Mary have inside jokes, John wondered distractedly.

And then Angelo was there, carrying plates of finger foods which he plunked down in front of the high chairs. When he saw John, he flung up his plump hands and cried "Johnny! I no see you in long time!" and grabbed John in a bear hug that squeezed the air from his lungs.

After he finally broke the hug, Angelo caught both of John's hands and held them tightly. "Mr Sherlock very happy you come back, Johnny," he said seriously. "He was pine away. Never eat nothing. I say he has beautiful wife now, no need boyfriend."

"I wasn't—" John started to protest, but stopped himself when he saw that the rest of the group was obviously suppressing the giggles. "Right. . . well, thank you Angelo."

With that, Angelo released John's hands, and he covered his embarrassment by taking Lucy from Mary's arms and wrestling her into a high chair while Sherlock slotted Phineas into the other with practiced ease.

Making small talk when he had no idea what was going on turned out to be sort of a minefield for John, but luckily it didn't take much to get Sherlock to talk about the Wizard case. He gave a fairly thorough explanation of how the preserved spleen had led him to the Wizard's house, although little of it made sense to John. In fact, John tuned out about halfway through in favor of making goofy faces at the babies, who found him quite hilarious.

When he tuned in again, Sally was saying, "I think that shirt is completely ruined, unless you know a good seamstress."

"Unimportant," Sherlock said with a shrug. "I have others."

"And have you got another stomach? That cut was deep."

"Just a scratch." Sherlock flashed her a lascivious grin that raised John's eyebrows. "Didn't bother me later that night."

Wait a minute, did that mean. . .? Would she really? Sally at least had the decency to look embarrassed, even more so when Sherlock wrapped an arm around her shoulders and smooshed a kiss against her temple.

It was weird, but in some way that John couldn't define, it felt right to see the unlikely couple together, maybe because this time he knew Sherlock wasn't faking. Sherlock actually did seem happier than John had ever remembered. That aloofness that he usually carried like a shield had faded a bit. He seemed more open, more engaged with the people around him in a way that had eluded him before. Judging by the way Sherlock was looking at Sally Donovan, John had to wonder if maybe she had been a part of that change, even if she didn't remember it.

John's thoughts were interrupted by a buzzing sound of Sherlock's phone vibrating on the table. Sherlock picked it up and scowled at it.

"Lestrade. This had better be at least a six," he said, scooting out of the booth. "Won't be a minute. Even less if he wants me to investigate another obvious jilted lover case like last week."

"I'd better change Lucy's nappy too," Mary said, making little shooing motions at John to move out of her way so she could exit the booth.

"Why? It's fine."

"You can't smell that?"

John frowned as he scooted out of the booth. "No, but I suppose I'm glad you can."

She rolled her eyes at him, scooped Lucy out of the high chair, and headed toward the toilets, leaving John alone with Sally and Phineas, who had dumped most of his finger foods on the floor and was busily smashing the rest into the tablecloth.

"So. . ." John said, folding his hands on the table and leaning in toward Sally, who looked at him quizzically. "You and Sherlock. . ."

"Oh, no, not you too," She rejoined quickly. "I am married to the man. I thought you would have been used to that by now, even though you haven't been around for most of it."

"It is weird, though, isn't it?"

"What's weird?"

"Well, having our memories be different from everyone else's."

Sally's eyebrows pulled together. "What do you mean?"

John frowned. What did he mean? "I mean, remembering when—when you and Sherlock weren't together, I guess." They hadn't been together, right? His mind felt a bit fuzzy around the edges.

"Yeah, but that was a while ago now."

"Right, but. . ."

"What do you mean our memories are different?"

"I guess—I guess I don't know exactly what I mean. I'm just—I'm happy Mary and I are back together."

"Yeah, that's great," Sally agreed enthusiastically. "I didn't think that was ever going to happen."

"I didn't either," John admitted. "But I missed her. It was hard to live without her for. . ." How long had it been? Months? It felt like months, that was for certain. Long enough for him to know he had to make things right.

The front door jangled and Sherlock came back in with his phone still clutched in his hand, a feral grin on his face. "Good news," he said gleefully as he slid back into the booth beside Sally. "Double homicide in Covent Garden. It's at least a seven! I told Lestrade we'd stop by after dinner." He was looking at John when he said that.

"'We' meaning. . .?" John said.

"You and me, of course," Sherlock said, his grin faltering a bit. "Right?"

"Yes, right, of course."

The relief on Sherlock's face was so palpable that John had to grin back. Were things "right" now? Maybe not the same as they had been. But, John reflected as he watched Mary returning from the toilets with Lucy in her arms, that didn't matter, as long as he had the people he loved.

* * *

A/N: All done! Love it? Hate it? Indifferent toward it? Let me know by leaving a review. . .


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